Will you Stay with me, my Love?
by SolanumTuberosum
Summary: "Hopefully I'll be back before the battle starts." She muses, kissing the tip of her twin's nose as he strokes her cheek with his thumb, his hand having moved up from her armoured waist to cradle her face, "We all know you'd be lost without me in a fight." An alternative version to Prince Caspian where Edmund and Lucy had a secret relationship during the Golden Age. Pevencest. EdL


As they stumble through the wardrobe and back into Professor Kirke's house, Susan and Peter look around and smile, their memories of England coming back to them even as their Narnian memories fade.

Lucy, however, catches her twin's gaze, his brown eyes much darker than hers, and she almost screams and tries to climb straight back into their paradise.

Edmund just smiles unsurely and squeezes her hand, offering her minimal comfort.

"It'll be alright, Luce. It'll fine." He whispers softly and for the first time in fifteen years, she doesn't believe him.

That night she sobs into her pillow, that night and every other night for months till eventually Edmund comes to her and they cry together, in each other's arms as they had spent the last ten years.

* * *

"Susan!" Lucy yells just as she hears her sister give an incorrect name to a geeky looking boy next to her. She smiles apologetically as Susan whips around but the fight in the station is more important so she beckons her. "You'd better come quick!"

Susan takes one look at her sister before grabbing her hand and running with her back across the road.

When they arrive, they see two boys, both bigger than Peter, beating him up though he puts up a good fight. One of the boys, after their eldest brother manages to floor the other, shoves him roughly against the wall, slamming his face into the cold brick.

Lucy knows Edmund is coming before he pushes past her, knows because Peter is the High King and his brother and Edmund will always do his best to protect him, even when his protection is unwanted.

It does not stop her from shouting his name when he jumps one assailant before yanking the other off Peter, but thankfully, shrill whistles pierce the air and soldiers come to break up the brawl before either brother can get any more hurt.

Susan, from her place beside Lucy, winces as they hear one soldier admonishing Peter. They both know that Peter would not forget that particular stinger for a few days.

The crowd disperses and they make their way to a bench by the platform, Edmund and Peter sniping at each other along the way.

"What was it this time?" Susan asks impatiently and Lucy knows that she thinks Peter should have forgotten about the life they had in Narnia, or at least forgotten it enough not to let it affect him the way it did. Lucy would have envied the ease in which she had transitioned if it had not been for the way she loved Narnia and Edmund.

As it was, Lucy pitied Susan for getting so caught up in Spare Oom that she forgot the magic of their true home.

"He bumped me." Peter grouses, running a hand through his short blondish hair and giving Susan a sharp look as she tuts quietly under her breath.

"So you hit him?" Lucy asks sceptically, earning her own indignant glare from her eldest brother.

"No. After he bumped me, he tried to get me to apologise. That's when I hit him."

"Why can't you just walk away?" he eldest sister sighs, beyond exasperated. Peter was now openly glaring at her, chin jutted out and eyes angry and proud.

"I shouldn't have to! Don't you ever get tired of being treated like a kid?" He complains, not noticing Edmund smirk at Lucy, the twins rolling their eyes.

As far as they're concerned, Peter is constantly coddling them, telling them what to do and all around, treating them like they are their physical ages rather than their mental ages of twenty nine.

"But we are kids." Edmund says and Lucy thinks their other siblings completely miss the condescension in his voice, the accusation that is thinly veiled. She almost laughs.

"Well I wasn't always." The twins avoid each other's eyes in a vain attempt not to laugh in their brother's face, to call him out on his words and ask him why he thinks that he remembers better than they do, that they were once adults with thoughts and feelings that become confused and odd in a child's body, "It has been three year. How long does He expect us to wait?"

"I think it's time to except we live here." Edmund snorts softly and Lucy giggles into her hand at her brother. Of course Susan would say something like that. She's only happy when everything's easy and she looks pretty, "It's no use pretending any different."

Susan suddenly turns pale though, when she looks up and she quickly angles her body away from the left side of the platform.

"Pretend like you're talking to me!" She whispers urgently, and Lucy spots the lanky boy from earlier making his way over.

"We are talking to you." Edmund comments drily, moving to the side as Peter comes to sit down. Susan moves slightly as well and Lucy thinks that something must have caught on her because the next thing she knows, something sharp seems to prod her arm.

"Ow!" She jumps up from her seat only to be shushed by her sister.

"Be quiet, Lucy."

"Something pinched me!" She insists, eyeing the seat she'd just vacated as if it might bite her.

"Hey, stop pulling!" Peter orders causing Edmund to splutter indignantly.

"I'm not touching you!" But Peter ignores him and pushes up off the seat to join Lucy just as the first bricks start flying away from the walls and roof, revealing streaming sunlight.

"What is that?" Susan wonders, standing herself and looking in wonder at the platform. When a train begins to speed by, Edmund also rises.

"It feels like magic." Lucy murmurs, and it does. She can feel the warmth that she hadn't felt in three years begin to wrap around her and she can almost hear Aslan's roar in her ears, the laughter of the younger Narnians, Orieus's calm instructions in her ear.

"Quick, everyone hold hands!" Susan cries as the train station practically falls away beneath them, more bricks flying out from the walls. Lucy hears Edmund protest in a typically Edmund way, but she's too focused on the crowded, noisy platform slowly melting away to reveal a blue sky and clear seas and golden sand that shines under a hot sun.

She takes one look at her siblings before running towards the surf, kicking off her shoes and cardigan, running in to the cool water till she's deep enough to swim. Edmund catches up to her, his lips quirked into a wide smile and the eldest Pevensie children just laugh and splash each other in the shallows.

"Told you everything would be alright." He murmurs, looking over his shoulder to make sure their siblings aren't watching before wrapping his arms securely around her and pressing a quick kiss to her full lips.

They eventually make their way back to Susan and Peter, splashing at them and playing happily like they hadn't done in years.

"Where do you suppose we are?" Edmund asks eventually, looking up at the cliff that borders the beach.

"Well, where do you think?" Peter laughs, wading out of the water, followed by the sisters. Ed shrugs, pointing to the top of the cliff.

"Well, I don't remember any ruins in Narnia."

* * *

Weaving through the overgrown paths, trying to avoid rocks and pillars, Lucy knows that this Narnia is a lot older than it was when they were last there. She runs a hand lazily across a fallen wall, feeling the worn engravings that are still there, after who knows how many years. Edmund catches her eyes from a little way away and smiles sadly at her, realising exactly what she has. Ruins like these take years to become so dilapidated and he'd already said that there weren't any ruins in Narnia three years ago.

She decides she cannot bear to look the evidence of a life long gone, cannot even begin to think about what it means so she turns and stares back out at the sea, the water so familiar, her water really, because they're facing the glistening Eastern Sea.

"I wonder who lived here." She murmurs quietly, jumping when Susan answers.

"I think we did." Comes her soft reply and Lucy turns to see her picking up something small and glittering, gathering Edmund and Peter's attention as well.

"Hey, that's mine!" Ed's surprise makes her stomach curl unpleasantly. "From my chess set."

"Which chess set?" Peter asks, earning himself looks from all three of them.

"Well, I didn't exactly have a solid gold chess set in Finchley, did I?" He laughs and looks around, realization beginning to creep in. Lucy goads herself to look around, noticing the ruined dais where four slightly raised stumps seem to sit.

"It can't be."

She feels sick as she begins to piece together what the ruins must have looked like before and she runs for the thrones, ignoring Peter calling her name, knowing they'll follow her anyway.

"Don't you see?" She questions, placing them all in front of their respective thrones.

"What?" Peter's adorably confused, though she sees the recognition and, in her twin's case, resignation in her other siblings' faces.

"Imagine walls there," She points to the east side of her home, "and columns there," pointing to the west, to the ruined columns that barely stood, "and a glass roof."

Her eldest brother's expression clears, though it just as quickly clouds as he realises what he's seeing means.

"Cair Paravel."

She smiles sadly at him and walks back down the steps with Edmund, his arm around her waist for safety, in case she trips over the rubble. She hopes her siblings won't notice the way his thumb strokes her side lightly in the most comforting gesture they can afford.

"Let's see if the treasure chamber is still intact, shall we?" Susan eventually offers, making her own way down the dais, treading carefully. Peter smiles at this and Lucy know it's the thought of his armour at play.

The siblings walk through the maze of stone, Lucy leading them, but Edmund stops when he notices a rock that is not shaped in anyway, but too big to have been knocked out of anywhere.

"Catapults." He realises out loud and Peter goes over to inspect. "This didn't just happen. Cair Paravel was attacked."

Lucy hears what he doesn't say and no doubt Peter does too.

___While we weren't here to defend it_.

She turns away from the evidence of their failures and walks a short distance to where the hidden entrance to their treasury is, beckoning her siblings to it. Peter makes short work of his shirt, tying it around a branch but even he laughs when Edmund produces a torch.

"It's all still here." Lucy hears herself say in wonder, going over to her chest and pushing it open, grabbing the first thing she sees because it's red and velvet and she would know that particular gown anywhere.

"I was so tall." She holds the dress up to herself and frowns when it pools at her feet. Edmund stares at her and she almost laughs because this dress holds meaning for both of them.

"Well, you were older then." Susan grins, holding up one of her own dresses that doesn't look too long for her. Lucy turns and puts her own back, catching Ed's wink on the way.

"As opposed to hundreds of years later, when you're younger." He gripes and successfully makes her laugh as she begins searching her chest. She finds a large leather bag near the bottom and puts her old armour in there, the same chain and leather she'd used till she was sixteen and had grown out of it. Like her brothers, it also consisted of a red tunic with a golden lion emblazoned on the front. She stuffs a blue dress in her bag next and although it's of a plain material, it has different shades of blue running up its full skirt and when she moves, it looks like the sea's waves.

Lucy's about to go behind the staircase and change into a tunic and breeches when she catches Susan's confused expression as she searches through her own chest.

"What is it?" She asks and Susan looks up.

"My horn." She states forlornly, "I must have left it on my saddle the day we went back."

She goes back to searching her chest and Lucy leaves her to it, fishing out her own gifts from Father Christmas. Peter clearly has the same idea because the next thing she hears is him reading out his sword's inscription.

"When Aslan bears his teeth, winter meets its death." He intones, his voice heavy, remembering a time that seems to be long past.

"When Aslan shakes his mane, we shall have spring again." She finishes softly. "Everyone we knew… Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers… they're all gone."

Ed mouths 'later' to her and she feels anxious to be in his arms, surrounded by warmth and reminded that not everyone and everything is gone from their past life.

"I think it's time we found out what's going on." Peter replies determinedly, squeezing Lucy's shoulder as he passes with a leather bag like hers. Edmund dutifully follows, though he bumps her with his hip along the way.

She quickly changes, tucking the white shirt into the pliable leather breeches and wrapping her belt tightly around her waist, the same belt containing her dagger, cordial and her old sword, it's hilt the same silver her crown was, though it's lighter than her favourite sword as she'd used it only up to her sixteenth birthday. The last thing she does is clasp a heavy black bear fur around her shoulders with a conch shell brooch because night time in Narnia had always been cold.

Susan tuts when she sees Lucy in her masculine garb but she concedes not to dress Lucy up herself when she agrees to let Susan braid her hair away from her face.

* * *

The Pevensie siblings are discussing ways to find out what had happened to Narnia when they spot a boat with two soldiers and something else inside rowing down the Glasswater. They almost call out until the boat stops and the soldiers pick up their cargo, which turns out to be a dwarf that's bound and gagged. Susan unleashes an arrow on them, purposefully hitting their boat as a warning.

"Drop him!" She orders, making the dwarf panic because really, Lucy thinks, what a poor choice of words when the soldiers are holding him over the water.

They do drop him, right into the water like she'd predicted so Susan lets loose another arrow, hitting one soldier while the other jumps in and escapes. Edmund and Peter both unbuckle their belts, dropping their weapons to the ground so they can dive into the water easily, Edmund going for the way of transport, Peter going to save the dwarf.

When he pulls him out, Lucy kneels before him and cuts his binds away with her dagger, laughing slightly at his choice words for Susan.

"Drop him?" the dwarf growls, glaring at the elder sister, "That's the best you can come up with?"

"A simple 'thank you' would suffice." Susan sniffs primly, glowering ever so slightly at the strange man.

"They were doing fine drowning me without your help." He bites back at her and Lucy is trying her damndest not to smile but her sister's been___asking_ for a dressing down for ages and it feels so good to not be the one chastised for once.

"Maybe we should have let them." Peter snaps, shaking out his wet hair and stepping in front of his sisters, shielding them from the dwarf's scowl.

"Why were they trying to kill you, anyway?" Lucy asks, stepping out from behind her brother to look at the dwarf. She can see the barb on the edge of his tongue but when he looks up at her, he snaps his mouth shut, swallowing the insult. She smiles uncertainly at him.

"They're Telmarines." He eventually says, looking down again. "That's what they do."

"Telmarines? In Narnia?" Ed's scepticism is understandable.

Lucy remembers the Telmarines and the vast Western Wilderness had always separated their borders, preventing communication, friendly or otherwise, not that Narnians had ever particularly wanted to bridge that gap. In Telmar, the animals didn't talk and neither did the women if they knew what was good for them.

She scans the area, wondering how many more would be on their way soon and, deciding not to wait unguarded, goes to retrieve Ed and Peter's swords.

"Where have you been for the last few hundred years?" The dwarf laughs bitterly, eyeing the children.

"It's a bit of a long story." The youngest Pevensie shrugs, coming back over and handing Ed his sword, Susan right behind her with Peter's.

Rhindon catches the dwarf's attention as Peter slings it back over his shoulder and he takes two short, shuddering steps backwards in shock.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me." The still unnamed dwarf mutters, looking at each of them individually. "You're it? You're the kings and queens of Old?"

Peter smiles sheepishly at the man, holding out his hand for him to shake.

"High King Peter." He introduces himself and then less assuredly, tacks on, "The Magnificent."

"You could have probably left out the last bit." Susan laughs and Edmund turns away to hide his grin but Lucy just smiles and remembers a time when Peter really was High King Peter the Magnificent and Susan was Gentle and she herself was Valiant.

Edmund was the only one who stayed unchanged, who learnt his lesson once and never forgot it, remaining his Just self.

"Probably." The dwarf chuckles, still eyeing the children speculatively.

"You might be surprised." Peter responds casually, his smile challenging, almost predatory as he draws his sword.

"Oh, you don't want to do that, boy." The dwarf warns, but Peter's grin remains intact.

"Not me." He turns slightly and inclines his head in Edmund's direction. "Him."

Edmund shrugs and draws his sword, on guard against the dwarf, who then reluctantly takes Peter's sword, though it's seemingly too heavy for him and the blade end drops to the sand. Ed shares a quick grin with Peter that doesn't last long as the dwarf uses the younger brother's lack of attention against him, knocking Ed's sword away and hitting him hard in the face.

"Edmund!" Lucy cries, going forward, her hand on the hilt of her own sword, only to have Susan push her back and Peter give her a look that clearly said to let their brother fight the dwarf on his own.

"Aw, you alright?" Said dwarf mocks, Peter's sword raised in the air easily, no hint of discomfort coming from the man. Ed smiles, his sword raised also and his attention firmly on his opponent, though he spares Lucy a quick reassuring smile.

Their blades clash and Ed feints to the side, the dwarf stumbling forward then quickly regaining himself and slashing at Edmund's feet, though Ed jumps over Rhindon and delivers a flurry of blows to the small man, most that are managed to be blocked, though after a few more, Peter's sword goes flying from the dwarf's grasp and Edmund aims his own blade squarely at the beaten man, who falls back into the sand in astonishment.

"Beards and bedsteads!" He gasps, one hand rising up to wipe at his face, "Maybe that horn worked after all."

"What horn?" Susan asks suspiciously but Lucy doesn't care, just hugs her brother and brushes sand off his shirt.

* * *

"They're so still," Lucy observes, gazing up at the trees that line the high riverbank.

"They're trees." Trumpkin—he told them his name eventually, after Peter threatened to throw him into the Glasswater for the second time that day—grunts, looking up also. "What do you expect?"

"They used to dance." She replies softly, looking down again. The dwarf sighs.

"It wasn't long after you left that the Telmarines invaded, only a year or two, in fact." He explains, avoiding her eyes completely making the guilt grip her heart that bit tighter. "Those that survived retreated into the woods and the trees… they retreated so deep into themselves that they haven't been heard from since."

Trumpkin looks to the trees again, his expression weary.

"I don't understand." Lucy murmurs, following his gaze to watch the lifeless trees. "How could Aslan have let this happen?"

This catches the dwarf's attention and his eyes are biting when they meet hers.

"Aslan?" He scoffs, "I thought he abandoned us after you lot did."

He turns away as Susan and Peter turn to him, unwilling to look at the kings and queens of old.

Lucy feels sick again, because if this dwarf, alive hundreds of years after the Golden Age, could feel betrayed by them, she wondered how deserted their friends, their people must have felt.

"We didn't mean to leave, you know." Peter points out after a few beats of silence.

"Doesn't make much difference know, does it?" Trumpkin replies, his eyes flickering up briefly before returning to the water.

"Get us to the Narnians and it will." The High King resolves, rowing faster than before.

Lucy thinks she sees the beginnings of a smile of the dwarf's face the more they continue rowing and by the time they arrive on the shore, she's positive.

She leaves her siblings to tie up the boat, never having been adept at tying the right kind of knots and as she explores the shore, she notices a large black bear on the far side.

"Hello there." She calls, walking further towards it. "It's alright, we're friends."

The bear stands up but doesn't utter a word, seemingly just looking at her.

"Don't move your majesty!" Trumpkin yells suddenly, and Lucy turns to look at him and sees him running to the boat for his bow and arrows that they'd found for him. She swivels around just as the bear begins to run for her so she reaches to draw her sword, but comes back empty.

She turns and runs, aware of Susan warning the bear and Edmund yelling at her to shoot. Lucy trips and falls to the ground, screaming as the massive animal bears down on her before an arrow whizzes past her to bury itself in its chest.

"Why wouldn't it stop?"Lucy hears Susan's upset voice question but she chooses to focus instead on staying still, in case the bear is simply wounded.

"I expect he was hungry." Trumpkin replies gruffly, already walking over to where she still lay in the sand, her brothers' right behind him.

Peter helps her up, his arm wrapping securely around her shoulder as he continues to point his sword at the beast, Edmund doing likewise. Trumpkin simply surveys the animal for a moment before moving forward and beginning to prod it with his bow.

"He was wild." Comes Edmund's conclusion, though the confusion is evident.

"I don't think he could talk at all." Peter agrees, the same scepticism in his voice.

"Get treated like a dumb animal long enough and that's what you become." The dwarf mutters, drawing a knife. "You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember."

Lucy hides in Peter's chest and tries not to cry at what has become of her home.

* * *

"I don't remember this way." Susan complains and Lucy, for once has to agree with her. Peter was lost, whether he wanted to admit it or not.

"That's the problem with girls." He replied casually, a slight grin slipping onto his face. "You can't carry a map in your heads."

"That's because our heads have something in them." Lucy snorts, rolling her eyes with a smile. She doesn't really mind being lost; it gives her time to relearn Narnia and its forests.

"I wish he'd have just listened to the DLF in the first place." Susan says softly to Lucy so Peter doesn't hear and think his masculinity is being questioned.

Edmund hears though, and inquires into the name. She turns around, smiling widely, Susan doing the same.

"Dear little friend."

They walk away from the two stragglers with a giggle, Lucy vaguely hearing the dwarf mutter, "Well that's not at all patronising, is it?"

They continue walking for while, and when the sisters catch up to Peter, he's scowling.

"You said you last saw Caspian in the Shuddering Woods and the quickest way there is to cross at the river Rush." He growls out, scowling at Trumpkin, who, to his credit, matches Peter's scowl perfectly.

"But, unless I'm mistaken, there's no crossing in these parts."

"That explains it then." Peter snaps, mouth pressed into a hard line. "You're mistaken."

Lucy wants to hit him, to knock some sense into him and listen to the dwarf, who'd been living in this Narnia longer than they'd been in the Narnia hundreds of years ago. She says nothing, however, just follows obediently behind them, tracing everything she sees with her eyes, trying to memorise every twist and turn.

The hum of rushing water gets louder and louder and eventually, they come to the river's edge and look down.

They look down an awful long way.

"Over hundreds of years, water has eroded the earth's soil—" Susan parrots before being hastily interrupted by Peter.

"Oh, shut up." He growls, turning towards Trumpkin as Edmund asks the question they're all wondering.

"Is there a way down?"

"Yeah, falling." Trumpkin turns away, directing them south. "Come, there's a ford near Beruna. How do you feel about swimming?"

"I'd rather that than walking." Susan gripes, throwing one last look at Peter before turning also.

Lucy is about to join them when the sunlight filtering in through the canopy of leaves catches something, something large and gold and—

"Aslan?" She peers closer, squinting slightly but sure enough, standing at the other side of the forge is Aslan, inclining His head in a gesture for her to follow Him. "It's Aslan!"

She turns to her siblings.

"It's Aslan over there!" She points, still looking at her siblings and, registering their confused faces, she continues, "Well, can't you see? He's right over—"

Lucy feels like her heart has dropped into her stomach as she looks back to see the Lion gone. Her smile vanishes, wondering why He hadn't let her siblings see.

"—there."

"Do you see Him now?" Trumpkin asks sceptically, making her whirl around, anger creeping into her veins.

"I'm not crazy!" She snaps, glancing at all her siblings. "He was there. He wanted us to follow him!"

She catches the look Susan and Peter share and it makes her blood ___boil_, because it's the same look they shared when she had first told them of Narnia.

They'd thought she was imagining things then, too.

"I'm sure there are any number of lions in this wood." Peter attempts to soothe, "Just like that bear."

"I think I know Aslan when I see Him."

"Look, I'm not about to jump off a cliff for someone who doesn't exist." Trumpkin interrupts her glare and there is silence for a moment.

"The last time I didn't believe Lucy," Edmund finally says, and Lucy can't help but throw him a grateful smile, "I ended up looking pretty stupid."

Peter seems to deliberate and looks back over the gorge.

"Why wouldn't I have seen Him?" He asks, looking down at her. She shrugs, though she knows the reason. Peter doesn't want to see Aslan because he feels like he must be the one to restore Narnian, since he was the one who abandoned it.

"Maybe you weren't looking." She hedges, the answer clearly not appeasing her brother.

"I'm sorry, Lu." He eventually responds, going to follow Trumpkin, Susan at his side.

As soon as they are out of ear shot, Lucy lets loose.

"How dare he?" She growls, pacing back and forth along the river edge. "He's treating us like we really are only children! Did you see that look Susan and him gave each other? It was the wardrobe all over again! I discovered Narnia, I brought him here, I proved I wasn't imagining anything and he ___still _has the ___audacity_ to think I would imagine seeing Aslan?"

Edmund sighs and stops her from pacing by wrapping his arms firmly around her waist from behind and pulling her back flush against his chest.

"C'mon, Lucy love, you know Peter." He tries to reason, stroking his nose softly along the line of her shoulder and neck. "He just wants to prove himself; he doesn't mean to hurt you."

Lucy very slowly started to soften up in his arms till eventually she sighed and turned around in them to wrap her own around his neck.

"I know, Ed. I understand that… I mean, look at Cair Paravel and that bear and—" She cuts off, unable to keep listing their short-comings. "But I remember better than him. I just… ugh."

"I know, love." He murmurs softly, pressing soft kisses along her face, her eyes and cheekbones and nose, knowing it calms her down. "It'll all work out though, I promise. We'll fix Narnia."

Lucy smiles unsurely at her brother, leaning up lightly to catch his lips with hers in a short, sweet kiss.

"Thank you." She whispers against his mouth, pressing one last kiss to his mouth before they are interrupted by a loud cough.

They rip apart from each other and stare at Trumpkin, who in turn, also stares at them.

"I, uh—" He stutters, mouth half open and eyebrows in his hair. "I just—I just came to tell you that we should probably get a move on, don't want it to get dark. Your majesties."

"Thank you, Trumpkin." Lucy manages to force past the lump of dread in her throat. "We're right behind you."

The dwarf nods once and with one last look at the pair, though both were pleased to note it held no disgust or contempt, leaves once more.

The twins share a look and follow, Edmund squeezing Lucy's hand quickly before dropping it and walking in front.

* * *

When they get to the ford, they have to hide quickly because Telmarine soldiers are everywhere, some building a wide bridge across the river, others simply surveying the area and guarding the number of wagons filled with weapons.

"Perhaps this wasn't the best way after all." Lucy hears Susan whisper to Peter before they slowly back away, into the forest.

"Let's go back up river, see if there really is a way to cross." Peter decides, making his way up the path they'd made. Trumpkin grumbles something but doesn't argue, following after the king and queen.

Lucy hangs back to walk with Edmund so along the way, they have time to talk without the others listening or butting in.

"What do you think he's going to do?" She asks eventually, looking up at her brother, who just shrugs. "I mean, do you think he'll tell them?"

"If we ask him not to, he might be inclined to respect our wishes." Ed replies, smiling reassuringly down at her, "I don't think he was overly horrified, do you?"

"Well, Narnians are more tolerating of people like us." She points out, bumping him with her hip.

"That's true. Remember the Beavers?" He laughs, remembering the look of thinly disguised horror on Susan's face when they'd found out how closely related they were. "And Mr. Tumnus?"

Mr. Tumnus had been one of the few Narnians they had actually told about their relationship and he had simply laughed and told them he'd known, known for a few months, though he'd suspected since they first began to fall for each other.

Lucy smiles and laughs and Edmund simply grins and hopes that the happiness she feels at those memories would be enough to keep that expression on her lovely face in the coming weeks and months.

They arrive back at the gorge when the sun is resting close to the horizon and Lucy looks around, willing Aslan to show Himself again.

He doesn't so she simply continues forward till she's standing on the edge.

"So where do you think you saw Aslan?" Peter questions and once more, she feels like hitting him.

"I wish you'd all stop acting like grown-ups." She admonishes, moving along the edge. "I didn't think I saw Him, I did see Him."

"I ___am_ a grown-up." Trumpkin points out quietly and if she wasn't so angry, she might have laughed but instead she lets her twin laugh for her as she walks closer to the place she'd previously been standing.

"It was right around—" She screams along with her siblings as the ground gives way and she falls down, landing softly on some grass in a hollow part of the rock face.

A hollow part that seems to wind down further, closer and closer to the river till eventually it leads out onto it.

"—Here." She laughs as her siblings all look into the hollow she'd fallen in. One by one, they climb in and follow her as she leads them down the winding, rocky path.

When she slips on a wet rock crossing the river, Trumpkin steadies her from his place walking behind her and she turns and smiles gratefully.

Eventually, they are across so they set up camp after walking for another hour or two. Susan and Trumpkin catch some wild rabbits for dinner and Lucy cooks them on some hot stones, but she's too tired to eat, so she gives her portion to Peter, who wolfs it down with a grin.

Lucy settles down to sleep, huddled up in her cloak and looking at the Narnian sky which is different from her world's sky because the moon is larger, the colour of the night much more purple and the stars are so bright that on some nights, back at Cair Paravel, she'd shut her curtains to get away from the luminescent glow.

"Lucy, you awake?" Susan's soft whisper stops Lucy thinking about nights in Cair Paravel, nights that were too hot but she still got herself tangled up with Edmund anyway, sweating and unable to sleep but she'd always thought it was worth it, and nights that were so cold that they'd sleep under a mountain of furs, the windows shut tight and the fires blazing.

They had both hated the cold.

"Why do you think I couldn't see Aslan?" Susan continues and Lucy turns over to peer at her sister.

"You believe me?" She couldn't help the words that slip from her mouth but Susan simply shrugs lightly.

"Well, we got across the gorge." She reasons, still looking at Lucy for the answer.

___So that's it. You need proof before you can believe me, because I'm a child, but suddenly when you don't understand the concept of faith, I'm your peer again?_ Lucy cannot help the bitter thoughts that creep into her mind, because the day has tried her beyond her capabilities and all she wants is to sleep and get lost in her memories of a happy Narnia.

"I don't know." She replies eventually, resting on her elbow. "Maybe you didn't want to."

Susan pauses to consider her words, still looking thoughtfully at her.

"You always knew we would be coming back here, didn't you?" She states, watching Lucy with intelligent eyes. Lucy smiles.

"I hoped so."

Susan sighs and lies back down.

"I finally got used to the idea of living in England." She explains, looking up at the sky like Lucy had been doing earlier.

"But you're happy to be here, aren't you?" Lucy questions, watching her sister carefully. Susan's expression stays neutral as she responds, "While it lasts."

Lucy doesn't know what to say, so she falls back asleep.

* * *

When Lucy awakes, she feels different.

There's something in the air, something light and breezy that manages to make her feel dizzy and insignificant, so helpless against the mass of energy in the air.

It sizzles and cracks as she gets up, hearing a low, familiar growl from a cluster of trees near their camp, but as she moves, the energy seems to sing and the wind picks up, dancing in her hair and with the leaves.

She slips off her fur cloak and, with one last look at her family and friend, she runs up an embankment and into the woods surrounding their clearing.

Lucy reckons it's late morning from the way the sun is filtering in through the trees, bright and warm, and as she slowly walks through the forest, pushing tree branches out of her way, she starts feeling lighter and lighter.

The youngest Pevensie notices the floating petals before she sees the dryad, the pretty spirit that laughs and floats along, spinning around Lucy lazily before stopping and curling her fingers at the trees behind the girl.

Lucy turns to watch them groan and creak as they shift over to create a long archway. Without turning back to the dryad, she walks slowly through the trees, feeling the warmth of magic, the warmth of Aslan seep into her bones.

She feels like she could fly when He whispers her name and when she rounds the bend and sees the mighty Lion standing there in all his glory, the happiness only true Narnia could give her floods her heart.

"Aslan!" She calls, running to the true king of Narnia, hugging Him hard and pressing her face to His muzzle.

"I've missed you so much!" She mumbles into His fur, before stepping away and surveying Him. "You've grown!"

"Every year you grow, so shall I." He explains, smiling fondly at her. She cannot help but smile back, even though that smile soon fades as she remembers what state Narnia is in.

"Where have you been?" She asks softly, frowning slightly. Now she wasn't just remembering Narnia, but her transition from Queen to eleven year old Lucy, how hard it had been and how much pain she'd felt. "Why haven't you come to help us?"

"Things never happen the same way twice, dear one." He explains, his kind, intelligent amber eyes fixed on her.

A twig snaps and she's torn away, her eyes flying open to once again be looking at Susan's sleeping form.

The warmth is gone.

She sits up from the grassy floor, more disorientated than before.

"Susan!" She hisses, "Wake up!"

Susan stirs slightly, raising her head an inch of the ground.

"Certainly, Lu." She mumbles, turning over and away from Lucy, "Whatever you like."

Lucy rolls her eyes at her sister's again-sleeping form before a twig snapping makes her swivel around to face the same direction she'd gone to meet Aslan.

She rises, faintly noticing the discarded fur near to her sleeping area, before making her way up the same grassy bank.

The air does not hum as she passes and when she presses her hand against a tree trunk and urges it to awake, it stays still and cold and distant. Aslan is not there, she knows, but she continues on anyway.

A low growl makes her call out the great Lion's name, but no answer is forthcoming, though she does not have much time to hear one as a hand wraps around her face and drags her behind a large rock.

She has her gifted dagger in her hand and is about to ram it into her attackers side when she sees it is only Peter.

He puts a finger to his lips before she can admonish him and inclines his head towards a very armoured minotaur that she hadn't noticed in her search. She puts her dagger back in its sheath and draws her sword along with Peter, though he motions for her to stay put before he stalks towards it, keeping low to the ground and moving slowly as to not alert the beast to his presence.

With a loud cry, a dark haired man jumps out from the undergrowth, his own blade clashing with Peter's. Lucy stays still as her brother had requested, confident in his ability to win out against the unnamed man. She smiles as her brother disarms his opponent but he swings to hard and gets his sword stuck in a tree. The stranger kicks out, hitting Peter to the ground where he grabs a rock to club the man with.

That's when Lucy notices the Narnians that had gathered, many with their weapons drawn, ready to defend the tanned man.

"No, stop!" She yells as she rushes out from her hiding place, making both Peter and the man, who she guesses is Prince Caspian, turn to look at her. She puts her sword back in its scabbard and raises her hands out so all the gathered could see she meant no harm.

Peter looks around then, noticing the Narnians that were very much prepared to fight for the man he'd just been prepared to batter in the skull of.

"Prince Caspian?" He asks uncertainly, eyeing the man warily. The Prince has managed to get Rhindon out of the tree and is pointing it straight at its owner, though his hand wavers a bit, his face showing his confusion when Peter says his name.

"Yes." He answers, scrutinising Peter in much the same way as Peter was doing to him, "And you are?"

"Peter!" Susan calls, and the next second she's scrambling down the slope they'd entered by, following Trumpkin as he tracks their footprints. Lucy smiles at Edmund, who looks notably more relaxed upon seeing her.

* * *

Caspian looks down at the sword in his hands, for the first time registering the roaring lion-shaped hilt and the engravings on both sides of the sword.

He'd seen painting of the blade before, a blade wielded by a man with a golden crown and golden hair, a man that looked older than the one standing before him. In fact, the man that artists seemed to like depicting as the High King of Narnia looked nothing like the boy before him, who had honey toned hair and eyes a darker blue than the icy sky blue they were said to be.

"High King Peter?" He finally manages, looking back up. The boy—he shouldn't call him that really, because the king of Old looks the same age as himself—grins and nods.

"I believe you called." The boy king affirms, raising an eyebrow at Caspian, who shrugs.

"Well, yes but," He pauses, unsure whether the wary Narnians would turn on him if he insulted their fairytale king, "I thought you'd be older."

"Well, if you'd like," 'Peter' started, his grin spreading across his face, "we can come back in a few years?"

"No! No, that's alright." The dark blonde boy stopped moving away as Caspian said this, his smile growing smaller, though the amusement was still very much there, "You're just… not exactly what I expected."

As he says this, he turns slightly to examine the other kings and queens of Old, his eyes landing first on a petite girl who didn't look exceptionally old, though her light brown, almost golden eyes were much older than they ought to be. She has dark enough hair, not as dark as her two siblings standing next to her, though not quite as light as her eldest brother's, though Caspian notes that there are blonde tones to it when the light hits her. She wears simple black breeches, tucked into leather boots and a white shirt slipped into the breeches, a thick belt around her waist holding a sword, an ornate knife and a queer looking bottle that Caspian guesses holds her healing cordial, as she must be Queen Lucy the Valiant.

The next person in line was a taller girl who only looks slightly younger than him. She wears a dress, unlike her sister, and a quiver of arrows and a bow slung across her back identifies her as Queen Susan the Gentle. Her hair is the third darkest of the siblings, a deep chocolate brown that curls elegantly, her smiling eyes a wide, shallow ocean blue. Her lips are full and pouty and though she cannot be more than two or three years older than her sister, she looks older in the way she holds herself, all fine edges and poise. He cannot help but look back at her even when his eyes go to Edmund, because she really is very beautiful.

The boy, King Edmund the Just, he knows, is the darkest of his siblings, his eyes a deep brown, almost the same colour of his hair, hair that is pitch black with faint slivers of a lighter brown hidden in the thick mass. His eyes watch Caspian in a way that is much more calculating than his siblings, in fact, he watches everything with that sharp look, aware of everything that's going on while looking completely disinterested. The Telmarine thinks that a boy so young, the same age as Queen Lucy if the story of them being twins is correct, should not look so old, that the youngest king and queen should not be watching the events with a knowledge gained from years they do not have.

"Neither are you." King Edmund points out, his intelligent eyes following the minotaur with a weariness Caspian does not expect, that is until he remembers the stories of the Golden Age and how it came after a hundred year long period of winter under the White Witch, ending in a battle were dwarfs and minotaurs sided with the witch.

"A common enemy unites even the oldest of foes." Trufflehunter explains, from his place next to Nikabrik. The younger king says nothing, just keeps watching, though Caspian notices that his twin throws him a quick, reassuring smile.

"We have anxiously awaited you return, my liege." Reepicheep comes forward and stops in front of High King Peter, bowing low. "Our hearts and swords are at your service."

"Oh my gosh, he is so cute." Caspian bites down a laugh at the youngest Queen's hushed voice, though the mouse clearly does not find it funny.

"Who said that?" He demands, glaring around the area, his sword raised.

"…sorry." Comes Queen Lucy's sheepish apology, her hands folded in front of her, an adorably guilty look on her face.

Reep immediately lowers his blade, bowing low to the queen.

"Oh, um, your majesty, with the greatest of respect," the mouse clarifies, his voice and words completely composed, "I do believe courageous, courteous or… chivalrous, might more befit a knight of Narnia."

"Well, at least we know some of you can handle a blade." Peter laughs, and Caspian bristles at the ill-disguised barb.

"Yes, indeed." Reep tries not to glorify in the praise, though the prince can see it pleases him, "And I have recently put it to good use acquiring weapons for your army, sire."

Glenstorm looks over at Caspian, unsure, though Caspian ignores the look in order to concentrate on keeping the scowl off his face.

No matter whom this person was, he had no right, after leaving Narnia to the Telmarines, to come back in and take charge, like he was better than everyone else.

"Good," the boy replies, turning once more to face Caspian, "because we're going to need every sword we can get."

"Well then," the prince smiles, though he knows his eyes are flat and angry, "You'll probably be wanting yours back."

High King Peter takes Rhindon with a clenched jaw and Caspian just knows that this will be the start of a long, hard fight for control off two kings that try to claim his throne.

* * *

"So what are they like?" Lucy hears the badger, Trufflehunter, she thinks, whisper to Trumpkin as they walk to wherever the Narnians had taken to hiding.

She waits with baited breath, wondering if the dwarf's loyalty was strong enough that he would keep her secret from his friends and up ahead, she sees her brother stiffen slightly also.

"Complainers." Trumpkin grunts, louder than his friend had been, "Stubborn as mules in the morning."

"So you like them, then?" the dwarf walking with the two friends japes, grinning at the tallest of the three. Trumpkin shrugs and his answer makes Lucy smile, pleased to know that Peter's ungratefulness hadn't turned the tall dwarf against the kings and queens of Old.

"Well enough."

She looks down at Reep, who's also smiling and hides her laugh with a cough.

They arrive in a clearing after only an hour or less of walking and Lucy spots a large stone enclosure at the far side of it. She gasps as the magic floods her body, pushing out the worries and making her feel warm and light, like she could fly.

The place is special, she knows instantly. It hums with magic, with Aslan's power and while they walk towards the entrance, she cannot help but smile as the wind brushes against her and sings in her ears, welcoming her.

They walk together down through the stone walls, centaurs lining them with their swords drawn in salute. Lucy smiles at a young centaur that's not quite strong enough to hold his sword high enough and she is pleased when he smiles back, the awe in his eyes clear.

She almost wishes she had her crown with her, but decides it was a much better idea to leave it at Cair Paravel, in case it got lost out here.

As soon as they enter the hollow, the noise of a forge greets Lucy's ears but she chooses instead to focus on the hum, the tug she feels leading her down a narrow passage way.

Susan gasps beside her as the torches illuminate scenes from the Golden Age and she runs back out to call Peter in. Lucy stays were she is, however, and presses her hands against the carvings, feeling the warmth and energy that pulses, that gets stronger the further in she gets.

Her siblings walk down the passage with Caspian, bringing a torch closer to the walls to view the pictures even closer.

"It's us." Susan states, staring at a carving of them at Cair Paravel, standing by their thrones with their crowns atop their heads.

"What is this place?" Lucy asks eventually, turning to Caspian who's also looking at the walls in awe. He fixes his eyes to her, confusion and a slight hint of scepticism creasing his brow.

"You don't know?" He voices his thoughts, raising an eyebrow at them. The siblings continue to stare at them until he grabs his own torch from the wall bracket and leads them even further into the passage.

They come to a large open space and as soon as Lucy is through the threshold, her knees buckle and she almost falls if it weren't for Edmund's hand fisting in the back of her shirt and keeping her upright.

The magic that had been blooming steadily in her chest had burst and coming pouring out, making the air thick and heavy with its power.

She can barely breath as the room illuminates, showing portraits of fauns and centaurs and in the very middle, Aslan stood tall and proud.

Before him stands the Stone Table, the ___Broken_ Table as her—their—people had taken to calling it once it had cracked straight through the middle when Jadis had sacrificed the great Lion in Edmund's place.

Lucy hears the gasps of her family as they take in the sight before him, as the portrait of the true king of Narnia makes them keenly aware that He is not there with them to help. She does not dwell on her family's—Peter's, really—lack of faith, instead she walks slowly but surely up to the table pressing her hands against it like she'd done with the walls earlier.

This time she can smell blood and sweat in her nose, hear Aslan's roar and the Witch's shout of victory, taste salt and feel the magic swirl and darken, then screech as the great Lion is sacrificed.

She rips her hands away and almost starts crying if it had not been for the second of burning heat, of bright sunlight and gold as Aslan appears whole and magnificent, roaring so loudly the stone splits and the trees whine.

"He must know what He's doing." The youngest queen insists, turning back to her siblings, but she cannot pretend she doesn't see the doubt in her sister's eyes and the complete denial in her eldest brother's face.

"I think it's up to us now." Peter decides, his eyes dropping away from Aslan's face to look at her. She shakes her head but he ignores her.

She knows her brother hasn't lost faith in Aslan, he simply wishes to prove himself as capable of ruling Narnia again, but that fact doesn't stop her heart from burning up in anger as he dismisses her so easily.

* * *

The next time Lucy directly talks to her brother is when there is a war council on in the Broken Table's chamber.

Lucy sits on the table edge and listens to her brother and Caspian fight for dominance of the Narnians, watches as Peter accuses Susan of siding with the 'enemy' with his eyes, as Edmund does the only thing he's ever really been confident in and strategizes with known factors, not unknown ones like when Aslan will come to help them.

"Or die trying, my liege." Glenstorm the centaur affirms their plan to attack Miraz' castle and Lucy feels the anger that had been simmering since her eldest brother dismissed her when they first arrived at Aslan's How boil over.

"That's what I'm afraid of." She finally voices, angry eyes set on her brother's dark blonde head. He turns slowly, the disappointment and betrayal clear on his face.

"Sorry?" He asks, as if he hadn't heard her perfectly clear. His disbelief that she would go against him makes her want to throw something hard at his face.

"Well, you're all acting as if there's only two options; dying here or dying there." She points out, sitting up much straighter than before as Peter's reaction to her challenge is not the most hopeful.

"I'm not really sure you've been listening, Lu." Peter is about to turn away again but stops in his tracks when he notices the fury seeping into her face, making her lips press together in a hard line and her jaw clench as she fights not to do something rash.

"No, ___you're _not listening, your ___majesty_." She hisses out the words, ignoring the warning look from Edmund and the anger curving Peter's hands into fists. "I'm not a child, Peter. I have fought in wars and I have seen men too stubborn to listen to reason die. We need Aslan, or have you forgotten who really defeated the White Witch?"

His glare cuts into her, but she doesn't back down, continuing to stare at him till he turns away from her.

"I think we've waited for Aslan long enough."

She almost screams, instead settling for pushing herself off the table and storming out, ignoring Edmund's calls for her to come back.

* * *

They go over their plan of attack multiple times and eventually, they leave the How to practise out on the huge clearing.

When Peter spots Lucy sparring with Edmund, he walks over to her immediately, catching her blade with his.

"What do you think you're doing?" He demands, nodding towards her sword. She snorts at him, though Edmund backs away, knowing when Lucy is about to blow and when to duck and cover.

"Training, what does it look like?" She mocks him, a nasty smile curving her mouth upwards. She's non-verbally daring her brother to comment and, unfortunately for him, he ignores the warning.

"You're not coming with us." Peter states simply, as if it is his decision to make.

"Like ___hell_, I'm not." Lucy snarls at him, raising her sword away from him. "I'm coming because these are my people too, and if you go through with this, you're put everyone in danger. Including me."

"Lucy—" The High King starts, though he's quickly interrupted by her.

"Not up for discussion. I fight ___with_ my people, I fight ___for_ my people. You have ___no_ say in this." The youngest Pevensie seems to blaze as she, for the second time that day alone, storms away from her brother, Edmund following her to make sure she doesn't hurt anyone.

* * *

Lucy watches Edmund fly away in the grasp of an eagle and fidgets with the black sleeves of her undershirt, the leather tunic that was lined with plate digging into her shoulders

Susan is in similar garb, though under her leather she wears a deep blue dress instead of supple leather breeches.

Herself, her eldest siblings, Caspian and Trumpkin wait for the signal of Edmund's torch and when they get it, their eagles pick them up and begin soaring towards Miraz' castle, depositing them on the roof of Caspian's professor's chambers before soaring off again.

The king and the prince scale down the wall first, followed quickly by Lucy, with the other two making sure no one sees before climbing down also.

When Lucy enters the room, it's obvious that the man they'd been looking for had been taken away quite forcibly, Caspian clearly having the same thought.

"I have to find him." He resolves, picking up a pair of glasses and examining them.

"You don't have time! You have to get the gate open." Peter hisses back, looking around at the wreckage that is the room.

"You wouldn't even be here without him!" Caspian points out in a hushed tone, "And neither would I."

Lucy watches as Peter looks back at Susan, who shrugs.

"We can deal with Miraz." She reasons, her eyes flickering over to Caspian, who smiles slightly.

"And I can still make it to the gatehouse in time." He adds and hearing no protests, runs from the room. Peter looks at Susan once more, still unsure, but then just shrugs.

"Gatehouse, Lu." He turns and says to Lucy, who nods and leaves through the same door Caspian had gone through, followed closely by Trumpkin.

They only meet two more soldiers on their way, both of whom get Lucy's sword slipped between their ribs quickly and soundly, neither seeing nor hearing the small girl coming.

As they near the gatehouse entrance, the door slides open and Trumpkin lets loose an arrow at a Telmarine that had entered through the other door. He looks down and sees Reep and his merry band of mice.

"Ah, we were expecting someone, you know, taller." Reepicheep declares, looking the dwarf up and down. Trumpkin snorts.

"You're one to talk." He points out, though the noble mouse's reply is cut off by Lucy slipping in and shutting the door quietly.

"Oh!" the mice exclaim, all three lowering their swords to bow, "Your majesty, we—"

"Now is probably not the best time for formalities, Reep." Lucy states, running with Trumpkin over to the huge, heavy looking wheel. "Now help me drop the drawbridge."

"Of course, your majesty." The mice scurry along the floor and begin pushing and Lucy is right about the wheel being heavy. It's almost impossible, but the mouse stationed at the window declares the bridge is down after five minutes of turning and Lucy runs over, ignoring the bells that are chiming, to look for Edmund and why he wasn't giving their army the signal.

When she sees him lose his sword to the Telmarine, her heart leaps into her throat, but he manages to incapacitate the soldier and eventually gets his torch working again.

Trumpkin stays by the window as the mice scurry down and into the fighting, while Lucy looks for a way they could get out without venturing into the castle. She finds none and cannot help but curse Caspian as she sees Miraz look over at the gatehouse and order his men to do something.

Closing the bridge is the most likely order, but the young queen sincerely hopes that that isn't it.

When two men burst into the room, however, she's proven correct.

Trumpkin shoots one but the other shoves him from the window. Lucy spares a look at him, seeing him hit the ground hard, but she cannot worry, not when she knows more men will be on the way. She kills the man nearest to her and using the dagger strapped to her calf, kills another that is entering before scurrying out the window and down the weight holding the bridge open as more soldiers begin to pour in.

Every hit they deal the weight's chain vibrates down through the line and into her hands and just as she feels it about to give way, she lets herself drop, rolling under the overhanging gatehouse so the weight does not crush her as it falls.

The Valiant thinks she has very like broken something in her left arm, because when she lands, she hears a sickening crunch and, as she tries to get up, her head spins and her legs give out underneath her, everything in her body hurting desperately. In the back of her mind, she can hear the clashing of fighting and she thinks she might hear Edmund yelling at her, but his voice gets drowned out as she fades in and out of consciousness, ears ringing.

"Lucy!" She's dimly aware of her brother screaming her name in between shouts to retreat, but she can't stand, can barely move at all, but then she sees Caspian and a fat, bearded man on horseback and Peter, Peter galloping away from her and she can't stay here, not with the Telmarines.

She uses every ounce of strength in her bruised body to scream her brother's name and he whirls around on his horse and gallops towards her, ignoring Caspian's yelling.

When he reaches her, she almost collapses again, but he grips her hard around the waist and swings her up and in front of him so he can keep a hold of her.

They are the last to make it out the gate before Asterius's strength gives out. She starts to cry as the screams of the hopeless Narnians reach her eyes and she forces her eyes open to look at them before they are slaughtered, to give them the respect they deserve.

Peter hesitates, even as the drawbridge slowly starts to go back up, until eventually he turns around and gallops over the widening gap.

"Lucy?" He asks softly, stroking her hair away from her face. "Lucy, you have to stay awake."

"Mmh-hmm." She moans, bringing her right hand up to her face and feeling it coming back wet.

"No, really, Lu. C'mon, wake up." He urges, shaking her slightly, but she just whimpers.

"My arm, Peter!" She hissed, though it lacks any form of bite as she's half asleep saying it. She hears her brother's sharp intake of breath and crack open one eye to look at him. "What?"

"Your arm, Lucy." He breathes staring at it with wide eyes. She looks down at her left arm from her place sideways across the horse, Peter supporting her with one arm around her back to keep her upright, and almost gags.

Blood covers her arm and the bone at her wrist is poking through the torn skin there.

"Wow." She mumbles, though Peter tightens his grip on her and gallops ahead, stopping when he reaches the forest.

"Everyone uninjured walks." He orders, noticing Edmund walking with a bad limp at the back of the column that was significantly smaller than when they'd first ridden out. "Edmund, take this horse, you have to hold onto Lucy."

"Lucy?" Susan gasps, running out from her place in the large group. "Oh Aslan, look at her!"

"She jumped out from the gatehouse and hit her head pretty hard and she's probably broken more than an arm." Peter explains, shifting his grip on his youngest sibling so he could hop down from the horse but keep her steady on it. Lucy watches with bleary eyes as Edmund, limping spectacularly, walks as fast as he can manage over to the horse, swinging himself up and settling her better into his arms.

She sighs as his warmth envelopes her, as his smell of blood and sweat and steel calms her and she barely resists the temptation to bury herself in his chest.

"Can still hear you." She mumbles eventually, making Susan smile slightly, though Peter doesn't hear her as he's helping Glenstorm get the injured onto horses and centaurs and, if they are small enough, settled into the uninjured people's arms.

"That's good." Edmund replies and she can hear the smile in his voice as he finishes what she'd said to him at the end of the battle in Archenland's defence. "Means you're not dead yet."

"Hilarious." She mutters, feeling some bit of consciousness seep back into her. She'd always been a fast healer, and while her bone is still completely out of place and her body feels like it had been trampled by a herd of centaurs, her head no longer spins wildly and her vision doesn't fade in and out.

Lucy realises something as they trot slowly in line, following Peter and Caspian who are stoically avoiding talking to each other.

"Trumpkin!" she bursts out, "we need to ride straight to Aslan's How and get my cordial!"

"What—Lucy, we can't—" Edmund protests but Susan turns around, a worried frown on her face.

"Go, we'll be there soon enough." She orders, and while Edmund looks down at her, unsure whether she could withstand the rough journey, he doesn't need telling twice, pushing his horse into a gallop and ignoring Peter's shouted question.

He wants the time alone with Lucy, without their siblings watching over them, so he pushes his horse faster, ignoring the pain it causes his sprained ankle.

When they arrive, they tell the people that were left behind that the others would be there soon, that they would answer their questions because really, neither Lucy nor Edmund were feeling up to explaining the complete and utter failure that had just taken place.

Edmund makes Lucy take a drop of cordial herself when she collapses after he helps her down from her horse, the sheer exhaustion making her not realise that she'd broken much more than her wrist, but she eventually does concede to drinking a drop of the fire flower juice and is glad of its properties, especially when she feels everything crack back into place, though the skin around her wrist bone remains raised and purple.

She changes out of her bloody clothes and into the blue dress she'd packed in the leather bag and Edmund bandages up her wrist before she bandages his ankle, then they just sit in silence, fingers entwined, waiting for the raiders to get back.

They leave the How when they hear the approach of the army and, following Trufflehunter out the entrance, they begin to wish they'd stayed inside.

"What happened?" the badger asks and Edmund groans.

"Ask him." Peter spits, going to walk ahead, ignoring Susan's sharp reprimand.

"Me?" Caspian snaps, whirling to face the king, "You could have called it off! There was still time!"

"No there wasn't, thanks to you!" the blonde boy retorts, glaring fiercely at the prince, "If you'd kept to the plan, going to the ___gatehouse_ and helping my sister, instead of giving her no other option but to jump out and nearly kill herself, those soldiers might still be alive!"

"And, if you'd stayed here like I suggested, they definitely would be!" Caspian shouts back.

"You called us, remember?" Peter's voice was all manner of sarcastic, and Caspian's face contorts in a sneer.

"My first mistake." Peter goes to walk away though he can't resist one last jab.

"No, your first mistake was thinking you could lead these people."

"___Hey_!" Caspian roars, making the king turn around again, "I am ___not _the one who abandoned Narnia!"

"You ___invaded_ Narnia!" Peter snarls, jabbing his finger in the prince's direction, "You have no more right to it than Miraz does!"

"You, him, your farther. Narnia's better off without the lot of you!" Caspian stormed past Peter, unwilling to continue listening, though he turns around with a roar at Peter's last words, drawing his blade the same time Peter does.

All the while, Lucy didn't watch them, she watched Glenstorm slowly making his way to the front of the column to an unconscious Trumpkin down on the stone ground.

"Stop it!" Edmund roars, pushing the two apart while Lucy runs toward the dwarf, the image of him hitting his head harder than she had against the ground when he tumbled out the window playing over in her head.

She drops to her knees beside him, uncorking the cordial and letting one drop fall between his parted lips. The Valiant Queen gives a relieved smile as Trumpkin splutters and opens his eyes.

"What are you all standing around for?" He growl, still lying down to let the potion take effect, "The Telmarines will be here soon enough."

She laughs and goes to get up, though the dwarf grabs her hand and whispers, just loud enough for her to hear, "Thank you… my dear little friend."

She smiles brightly at him before taking Edmund's hand and tugging him inside.

* * *

Lucy guides her worn out twin through tunnels till they are in a deeper part of the How than their siblings would think to venture.

Edmund collapses on a stone step and Lucy sits on the one above him so she can sift her hands through his hair and when he starts to shake, she presses kisses to his neck and jaw and behind his ears, anywhere that's available to her really.

He calms down eventually and she wraps her arm around his chest, resting her head on his shoulder.

"It's not your fault, sweetheart. Not yours." She murmurs softly against his skin, "You did your best, you couldn't save them."

"I know, but I just… I felt so helpless. It was just like—" Edmund cuts off before he can say what he'd thinking but Lucy knows, Lucy always knows, so she makes him turn around so she can place a sweet kiss to his down-turned mouth.

They were nearly slaughtered in Archenland, Narnians and himself alike, before Lucy arrived with more cavalry, a surprise attack that split the Calormene soldiers apart, leaving them vulnerable.

Then there was Susan nearly being taken by Prince Rabadash, and Peter and the Ettinsmoor giants and there were so many times when Ed had felt helpless that he sometime wondered what Aslan had seen in him to make Him think that the younger brother would ever become the Just King.

When he thinks like this though, Lucy grounds him with sweet words and even sweeter kisses, her mouth tasting like honey and strawberries and it's when they're twisted up in each other that Susan finds them, her screech tearing them apart quicker than a minotaur could.

"What are you ___doing_?" She shrieks from where she stands in the doorway, "Why—what—___how_ could you do this?"

"Susan, calm—" Lucy begins, though her heart is beating a mile a minute and she feels sick to her stomach.

"Calm down? ___Calm down_? Lucy, do you even ___realise_ what you were doing?" She demands, her hands gesturing wildly, unable to do much more as the shock and betrayal set in, "And ___Edmund, _you should know better! How could you take advantage—"

"We're not kids." Edmund growled, unwilling to help calm Susan down because she'd just suggested that he would coerce Lu into kissing him, that he would ever—

"Susan, what's going on?" Peter's worried voice rings through the passage and he enters seconds later, though long enough for Lucy to make a whispered plea to Susan that she would explain later if Susan didn't tell Peter now. Trumpkin follows in behind, looking slightly worse for wear but okay.

"We heard the screaming so…" He explains, though he takes in Lucy's white face and Edmund's almost defensive stance and knows why Susan was screaming at the two siblings.

"I don't think anyone didn't hear that." Peter jokes, though it's half-hearted and his eyes frown as he takes in his other siblings' expressions. "What—"

Edmund falls to the ground with a shout, his hands clutching his stomach and Lucy is immediately at his side, asking him what is wrong, though she feels it too.

The air had shifted, become heavy with the smell of cold and Lucy feels ice creep into her heart and take away the warmth that Aslan's How normally brings her. She felt like she might be sick.

"What's wrong?" Peter asks again, though he kneels down at Edmund's side now, forgetting about Susan's shouting.

"She's here." The twins answer at the same time, Lucy getting to her feet to help Edmund up. They race to the doorway before turning around, noticing the others weren't following.

"We need to go now!" Edmund yells, urging them on but instead of waiting, he takes off, his sword already drawn.

"The White Witch. The White Witch is here." Lucy explains, before taking off after her brother and hearing the other three racing after her.

Lucy is stopped by Susan while the others get in front of her to chase Edmund down but Lucy shoves her away and yells, "later!" over her shoulder, continuing to run towards the coldest spot in the How, a spot she realises, as she passes carvings on the wall, is in the room of the Broken Table.

She rounds the bend and sprints into the room, noticing the wall of ice housing Jadis' spirit before taking in the sight of her brothers doing varyingly well against a hag and a werewolf but Trumpkin is on the ground, a knife-wielding Nikabrik standing over him, so she heads to them.

She wraps her hand around his wrist and bends, making him drop the knife as she holds her own dagger against his throat using her left hand. He remembers how she'd hurt it though and presses down harshly against the purple bruises, causing her to cry out and enabling him to slip her blade from her grasp and kick her hard onto the steps behind them.

He raises the blade then seems to hesitate, taking in her wide golden brown eyes and youth, remembering for a minute that she is a queen of Old. His hesitation doesn't stop Trumpkin from sliding the fallen blade into the black dwarf's back though, and the other dwarf holds out his hand for her to take.

She looks around, noticing Edmund slowly edging his way around the room, presumably to break the ice from behind, but her eyes quickly fix on Peter knocking Caspian aside and pointing his sword at Jadis' spirit.

"Peter, dear." The Witch smiles, though she drags her away and back into the ice, "I've missed you. Come, just ___one_ drop."

Lucy watches in horror as the Witch snakes her hand back out towards Peter, who hesitates.

"You know you can't do this alone." The Witch points out, a soft smile on her face.

"Peter!" Lucy yells, breaking the spell she can feel the Witch weaving and making her brother turn towards her, "Just kill her! Break the ice, don't listen!"

"Oh, and there's sweet, courageous Lucy." The Witch simpers, still inclining her hand at the again-wary Peter. "Only, she's not so sweet, is she, Peter?"

"…What?" Peter's voice is confused and Lucy feels the cold gripping him and spinning around him, dumbing down his senses and addling his mind.

"Undermining your authority, always bringing up how Aslan is ___true _king of Narnia…" The Witch makes it seem like she's sad to tell the eldest Pevensie this, though Lucy can see the deception and the desperation to be free in her eyes, "keeping secrets from you… In fact, her and Edmund, dearest, are keeping a very big secret from you."

Lucy's heart stops and for a moment, all she can feel is ice, in her lungs, in her veins, gripping her heart and stopping its beats, till the white-hot fury sets in, melting all ice and burning up her insides. She begins walking towards the White Witch, intent on ramming her knife through the vicious apparition, ignoring Trumpkin's attempts to pull her back but then Jadis gasps and flails, her hand sinking back into the ice before she shatters, leaving only Edmund's sword were the ice wall once stood.

"I know." He states, face impassive for the most part, though his mouth is slightly turned down in disappointment, "You had it sorted."

The brothers stare at each other for a moment, Peter coming back to his senses even as Edmund moves around the ice, intent on leaving.

"What was the White Witch talking about?" Peter demands, turning and sheathing his sword. Edmund sighs and doesn't answer, though Susan, who had arrived in time to see the destruction of the witch narrows her eyes.

"Was it why Susan was yelling at you two earlier?" the king continues suspiciously, ignoring the anger that was starting to build up in his younger brother. Caspian eyes Susan, surprised that anything could make the Gentle Queen yell. She doesn't look at him, instead keeping her eyes fixed on her younger siblings, fierce and unrelenting.

"It doesn't matter, Peter. I was mistaken." She replies quietly, never meeting his eyes though eventually she mutters, "Or I had better be."

"Susan." Ed's reprimand is sharper than he'd intended, but his twin recovers for him.

"It is nothing to worry about." Lucy soothes, her expression a complete contrast to everyone else's in the room. While she is relaxed, her face smooth and her mouth upturned slightly, her brothers' are scowling, Trumpkin looks worried, Susan is trying to appear stoic and Caspian is just plain confused.

Lucy sits on the Broken Table and rests her head on her knees, wary but hopeful of the way things might unfold.

"Tell me what is going on," Peter eventually growls out as Edmund unfreezes and sits down next to his sister, "or I'm going to beat it out of you."

Edmund goes rigid again and winds his arm tightly, protectively, around Lucy's waist.

"If we tell you, you have to promise not to get violent." Lucy bargains, eyeing her eldest brother who simply nods, though the clenched fists at his sides would indicate he is lying.

She doesn't continue for a beat or two, weighing her options. On one hand, Peter was still experiencing the after effects of the Witch's magic but on the other hand, the more he feels like he's being lied to, the more of the Witch's poison will seep into him.

She shrugs at her twin and begins.

"Now, Peter, you must understand that what we're about to tell you isn't accepted in England and that's why we kept it from you. Here in Narnia, however, it is and in some places, practiced. Please understand that, while we kept this a secret for so long, we did it because we didn't want to hurt or disappoint you," Lucy pauses then to look over at her sister, "either of you. Ed and I, we were sixteen and we didn't know what to do at first so we sought Aslan out and asked him for guidance. He gave us his blessing, but we still couldn't bear to tell you, so we kept it a secret."

"And what is '___it_'?" Peter growls, looking about ready to draw his sword. He knows, Lucy can tell, but he wanted to hear them say it, wanted it to be proved true, not just an assumption. She takes a deep, shuddering breath, about to continue when Edmund interrupts.

"Lucy and I fell in love when we were here the first time and ever since we received Aslan's blessing, we've been carrying on a secret relationship."

There is utter silence in the room and Lucy looks up for only a second before look back down at her lap but it's long enough to see everyone's facial expressions.

Caspian's mouth is wide open and he looks so confused that the young queen might have laughed if it hadn't of been for her siblings' reactions. Susan, Susan doesn't hide her disgust quick enough and Peter just stands there shaking, getting angrier and angrier, his face getting redder and redder, till eventually he burst.

His sword is out in the next second and then so is Edmund's and they begin fighting, yelling at one another.

"How ___could_ you?" Peter demands, slashing at his brother's arm but missing barely, "She's your ___sister_, your ___twin_! If you ___touched_ her, I'll kill you myself!"

"Exactly!" Edmund shouts back, stabbing out but being blocked, "She's ___my _twin! I know her, I love her! I'd ___never_ do ___anything_ to hurt her! I've been in love with her since the last time we were fourteen!"

"And then what?" The older brother growls, spinning away from Edmund's blade before parrying, "you kissed her? You ___made_ her fall—"

"I could never ___make _Lucy do anything!" Her twin roars, "Goddamn it, Peter! Just listen to us!"

"You've lied to me before!" Peter shouts back, knocking Edmund's arm hard and making him drop his sword, backing him up into a pillar and pointing his own blade at Edmund's throat, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't end you now."

"Because he's your brother!" Lucy reasons, knocking her brother's sword away from Edmund's throat and standing protectively in front of him. "Listen, Peter, I know we've hurt you, I know you don't understand, not yet, but we ___love_ each other. Taking Edmund away from me, hurting him,___killing _him will not change that. I will always love Edmund, not matter how old or young I am."

Peter sighs and puts his blade away, though Lucy knows the anger has not faded. A thought seems to occur to him and he turns back around.

"What about when we left Narnia, when you were eleven again?" He asks, suspiciously eyeing Edmund again, "I remember you crying all the time, at night."

"Just because I was back to being eleven physically, doesn't mean I couldn't remember being older. I remember every detail of Narnia and for a very long time, I was so angry." She explains, though her words make Peter reach for his sword again, and she realises how they were interpreted, "No! Not angry at Edmund! I was angry at everything, at you and Susan, at Narnia, at Aslan. When we went back, Peter, I was so confused. I didn't know how to act, or think and I—"

Lucy looks back at her twin, asking him a silent question that he instantly understands.

"I'll tell him, if you like. He might try to gut me again, but I think it's best we stop lying." He advices and Lucy simply nods, stepping back so her back was against his chest and he instantly winds his arms around her waist. Peter's eyes narrow, but he says nothing.

"Do you remember, two weeks or so before we went back, how Lucy was always sick?" Edmund starts and at Susan's soft whimper, the twins know at least one of their siblings had guessed what he was about to share. "Lucy cried at night back in England because, before we went back, she was fairly sure…"

"She was fairly sure she was pregnant." Edmund croaks the last words, because the twenty six year old eleven year old was devastated when he realised what going back had meant for his sister, and even now, in the body of a fourteen year old, it hurts to think of the child he'd come so close to having.

If Peter had been holding his sword, Lucy's fairly sure he would have dropped it in pure shock.

"___What_?" He gasps, looking at her for confirmation. She doesn't say a word because if she speaks, she's fairly sure she may start crying. She watches Susan instead, gentle Susan whose eyes are filling with tears and who looks so horrified she might throw up.

"Oh ___Lucy_." She breathes, looking up at her sister, "Oh Lucy, I am ___so_ sorry."

Lucy shrugs and brings her hands up to rub them over her face. Edmund kisses the juncture between her neck and shoulder before unwinding himself from her.

"I'm going to go help with the strategising, okay?" He's only half asking her, she knows, but she still nods, "Talk to them. I think they're a bit more willing to talk to you than to me."

"Okay." He leaves then, a still thoroughly shocked Prince Caspian and a sympathetic Trumpkin following after him. Lucy hears him curse as he round the bend but let's Susan go investigate.

The elder sister pops her head back in a moment later.

"You might have told more people than you intended." Susan announces, smiling slightly as Lucy sighs, "Do you wish to ask them to keep it to themselves?"

"Invite them in." Lucy responds, inhaling deeply to dispel her tears before going to sit down on the Broken Table, too tired to stand anymore. Susan says something quietly to the eavesdroppers and seconds later, they all file in, revealing themselves to be Reepicheep and his mice knights, Glenstorm, Trufflehunter and a faun she can't remember the name of. Edmund and Trumpkin walk behind them, though her brother stops before he enters, simply mouthing a loving reassurance before leaving again, probably to catch up with Caspian.

Trumpkin sits at her feet and glowers at the offenders, who all look slightly sheepish.

"Well?" Peter nudges, raising an eyebrow at the Narnians as he sits down next to his sister.

"We apologise, your majesties. We did not mean to eavesdrop but we heard fighting and came to investigate." The centaur explains, the others nodding. Lucy exhales heavily, pulling slightly on her brown hair.

"So you heard everything?"

"Yes, Queen Lucy, but let us assure you that, while we are intensely surprised, this revelation does not make us think any less of you or King Edmund." Reepicheep's sincere voice make Lucy relax slightly and she smiles softly at the gathered Narnian.

"Thank you, Reep, for your reassurances. Now, I must ask a favour of all of you." She watches them for a second then, just to judge their reactions.

"Your majesty, if you wish us to keep silent then it would be our duty to you, not a favour." Trufflehunter points out and the mice all nod and bow, so full of courtesy that she thinks Susan must love them.

"No, my dear badger, I wish for you all to subtly spread the word, so when myself and the Just announce our courtship, none will be overly surprised. I wish to give the Narnians time to adjust, rather than springing my relations with my brother on them." Lucy explains, though she frowns slightly as Peter chokes when she mentions a courtship. She feels slightly better as she notices Susan's approving look because the elder queen is very much about propriety and secret relationships don't exactly fall under that headline.

"Of course, your grace." They agree, bowing low before all being dismissed, though Trumpkin throws her a smile, squeezing her hand as he goes to leave.

"Thank you." She calls after them before turning to her brother. "So…"

"Oh, Lucy." He sighs before opening his arms out wide to her. She doesn't need telling twice, throwing herself into his arms and gripping on tightly to his shirt as he enfolds her. "I wish you had have told me."

"I'm sorry, Peter. I'm so sorry." She whispers against him, feeling the tears she'd been swallowing for two years well up again. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Lu. We understand, it's alright." Susan's comforting voice is soft and warm against the skin of Lucy's ear and she lets out a small sob, the feeling of having her family finally know her biggest secret, the greatest thing in her life that was Edmund, and except it, forgive her for her lies and still want to comfort her making her dizzy with relief and happiness.

It doesn't stop the burning that mentioning her and Edmund's child brings, but she pushes that aside because it's the only thing she can do.

She continues to cry into Peter's shoulder, both his and Susan's arms wrapped around her, till Edmund comes back and presses his face against her hair, breathing her in before pulling her into his arms and away from their siblings.

"Time to sleep." He rationalises as she begins to protest, so she settles down in his arms and lets him carry her to their sleeping area, Susan and Peter's footsteps echoing behind them.

Her twin lays her down on her bear fur and pulls it around her, but when he goes to moves, she snakes her hand around his wrist.

"Don't leave. Not till I'm asleep." She pleads, though her eyes are already shutting, she's so exhausted from the day. Her brother concedes and she feels him settle down next to her and pull her against him, his chin resting on the top of her head as he begins to hum softly.

She drifts in an out of a fitful sleep, occasionally hearing snippets of her siblings conversation—Edmund and Peter talking rationally and evenly, Susan's soft voice piping up occasionally as well—though mostly all she hears is noises that don't fully make sense to her, like the roar of a lion calling her name, the laughter of herself and her love mixed in with a baby, a baby Ed names as Swanwhite, before the screaming of Narnians start, and she can hear her own voice pleading, can smell blood and she just ___knows _it's her siblings' and when she hears the sickening snap of a small neck being broken and feels dead weight being dropped into her arms before the cold bite of shackles wrap around her wrists and throat, she wakes with a screech.

With her mind fully alert, Lucy can convince herself of her surroundings, that all she'd just experienced was not real and had not happened. Though the nightmare itself, she had experienced multiple times and it terrifies her every single it takes over her dreams.

She will admit, however, that the awful images that come to her in her sleep were the only things that ensured she didn't completely hate Narnia and lose faith in Aslan, though she sees no need for them now she has accepted what had to happen in her past to ensure Narnia's future.

The youngest Pevensie rises from her make-shift bed and, smoothing out the wrinkles in her skirt, makes her way to the chamber the Broken Table resides in, hoping to find at least one of her elder siblings.

She knows Edmund is not there as she can feel him above ground, away from the security of the How and, while this puts her on edge, she wishes to speak to her other siblings, to make sure they accept, or at least are on their way to accepting, her affairs, so she leaves him be.

Peter is sitting down on the floor between Aslan's carving and the Table, almost hiding as she enters and she makes her footsteps purposefully loud so he has some warning when she lowers herself down next to him. Everything is silent for a moment before the eldest Pevensie clears his throat.

"So… you and Edmund." He states, coughing awkwardly. Lucy laughs lightly, resting her head on her brother's shoulder, "How… how did that happen? I mean, Edmund explained his side but…"

"I… Well, I first started to ___notice_ Edmund as more than just Ed when I was nearly fifteen and I suppose my feeling just grew." She explains and Peter hums beside her, "We were sixteen before anything happened, almost seventeen before it got too hard to ignore our feelings. That's when we went in search of Aslan, hoping for… help, I guess."

"And what did He say?" Peter is curious more than anything, though she notices the relief, the gladness, almost, that his siblings had at least tried to ignore what they felt for each other. She is happy her brother is slowly coming to accept her and Ed.

"He said He understood, that He could see our hearts and knew that we loved each other, wholly and purely." She smiles at the memory and Peter smiles with her—at her, really—and then it seems like everything is okay again, just for those few moments. There's no war going on and no one is dying, the siblings are simply back in Narnia and there are no secrets, not anymore.

Lucy feels like she could burst from the lightness of the air filling her, that warmth that twines her and her siblings' together, warmth that feels old and strong and powerful.

"I'm sorry, Lu." Peter eventually says, turning slightly in his seat in front of the Broken Table to look at her properly.

"What for?" Lucy questions, confused, "Peter, I kept something absolutely massive from you. You have every right to be angry."

"I know but…" he sighs and stares at her imploringly, "I shouldn't have reacted like that. I tried to hurt Edmund and I didn't listen… I'm just—I'm sorry, Luce."

Lucy realises then that Peter doesn't realise how the witch had affected him, how poisonous her magic was.

"It's really not your fault." She soothes, reaching over to twine their fingers together. "Jadis' magic is powerful, even when she's in spirit form. That anger, the burning and need to hurt… Peter that wasn't you, that was her rot."

"How do you know that though? How can you tell?" He's confused and it worries Lucy, making her think that maybe it's not normal to feel the energy of things, the beliefs of Narnia that power the magic in the air and to know when that power shifts, to know the shift is ___wrong._

"The same way I knew she was here. I just… feel it, I guess. It got so cold and dark and…" She stops and studies her brother for a moment, "Don't you feel how warm, how ___good_, Aslan's How is?"

He thinks for a moment or two before shrugging.

"Not really." He admits, stroking his thumb across the back of her hand, "What do you think it means?"

"It's Aslan." She says with conviction, "I don't know why but I just… know. I thought you were all like me."

"I'm sorry, Lu, but I just don't feel anything." Peter exhales heavily, leaning back to rest against the table.

"I'll have to ask Susan if it happened to her but—" She interrupts herself to wonder if she should tell her brother, if he'd think she's crazy but then she remembers Edmund's words.

___I think it's best we stop lying_.

"When I first touched the table, it was like I was back at the sacrifice. I could smell the excitement, hear the shrieks… Do you think I'm mad?"

"No, Luce." He smiles and throws his arm over her shoulders, squeezing her slightly, "I think you're faith connects you to Narnia in a way the rest of us aren't. You never forgot anything, did you?"

She shakes her head and leans into her brother and they sit there for a while longer.

"You're lucky, you know." Peter states after a long while and Lucy pulls away to look at him.

"What do you mean?"

"To have seen Him." The eldest Pevensie sighs, "I wish He'd just give me some kind of proof."

Lucy smiles slightly and squeezes her brother's hand, trying to push all the magic of the room into him.

"Maybe we're the ones who need to prove ourselves to him."

Peter blinks at her and smiles and she feels like he is finally seeing her as someone much older than she looks, like he is once again seeing her as his equal, as a queen of Narnia.

Lucy feels Edmund coming before she hears him, but she looks up when Peter does so she doesn't scare her poor brother overly with the knowledge of how connected his siblings are.

Edmund's face is pinched in worry and his eyes are unsure as he takes in the two of them sitting, but clearly whatever is worrying him is bad enough that he has to interrupt.

"Pete…" He starts, using an old moniker for their brother, something Lucy hadn't heard in a long time, "You'd better come quickly."

His gaze flicks to hers as she hears the noises above, the thumping of the ground that can only be a marching army and for a second, his expression is almost pained.

Lucy is keenly aware that the night before, she'd almost died and she'd never been in an open-field battle quite so young and small.

She smiles reassuringly at her brother because she is Queen Lucy the Valiant and she will be brave.

They follow him out onto the raised platform above the entrance to the How and she forces her mouth to restrain the gasp that almost slips out when she sees the vastness of the opposing army.

Those surrounding her stare on in awe and apprehension—horror in some cases—but she is lost to the voices of the forest, the ones calling her name from the darkest parts that are inhabited by the darkest creatures but she is not afraid.

Aslan roars for her to come and she will deny Him nothing.

* * *

The war council is called in a place much more private than before, because the Broken Table chamber is where Glenstorm is issuing orders to the army to prepare them for battle.

Lucy had caught her brother's eye when they went back to the How and he knew what she must do while the army prepared.

They could not win the battle without Aslan and they could not get to Aslan without Lucy.

"What's the plan?" Caspian asks, much more placid than before his encounter with the White Witch and Lucy was positive one of her siblings must have talked to him, reasoned with him.

"Lucy has to find Aslan." Peter states, at ease with his statement though everyone else but Edmund seem to shift to look at her, their disbelief clear.

"I know where I must look." She assures those gathered, though her eyes linger on Trumpkin the longest, "the army will provide a distraction for me to venture into the Dark of the Shuddering Woods. Aslan is there, I know it. He's been waiting for me to go to Him, but well… Peter is still my High King and I would not go without his blessing."

Peter looks almost guilty when her eyes flicker to him, but he nods at her and turns back to the council.

"Cakes and kettledrums." Trumpkin growls, glaring at Peter, "that's your next big plan? Sending a little girl into the darkest parts of the forest,___alone_?"

The dwarf's body is rigid in anger as he points at Lucy as if to make Peter see how small and fragile she is, though Lucy knows there is nothing in the Dark that could harm her. The only thing she's worried about is getting there unnoticed.

"It's our only chance." Peter answers, his tone willing the dwarf to understand—something Lucy almost laughs at. A dwarf's mind is almost impossible to change.

"And she won't be alone." Susan pipes up, and Lucy's head snaps up in surprise. She had presumed Susan would stay with the archers, but she appreciates what her sister is offering, so she smiles and turns back to a sad and defeated Trumpkin, whose shoulders were slumped as he looks at her in anguish.

"Haven't enough of us died already?" He pleads and she wishes she could help her friend feel the magic all around them, the power that is Aslan, but she knows he does not believe, not yet, so she cannot.

"Nikabrik was my friend too," Trufflehunter points out, "but he lost hope. Queen Lucy hasn't. And neither have I."

Trumpkin is not appeased, but Lucy can think of nothing more that might placate him.

"For Aslan." Reepicheep pledges solemnly, drawing his sword. A bear repeats his words making Lucy smile at the deep, almost dopey accent the Talking Animal has.

"I'm going with you." Trumpkin states, turning back to her, but she shakes her head at him.

"No, we need you here." If Susan is indeed going with Lucy then Trumpkin would need to lead the archers.

"We have to hold them off until Lucy and Susan get back." Peter agrees, though he casts a look around the room to see if anyone has any ideas on how to distract Miraz's forces without actually beginning the battle.

"If I may?" They all turn to look at Caspian—an unspoken agreement passing between the siblings that, although it is hard to upset their family dynamic when it comes to ruling, Caspian will be the new king of Narnia because they will have to go home eventually, so they must listen to him—and his face is unsure, but he stands and continues, "Miraz may be a tyrant and a murderer, but as king, he is subject to traditions—and expectations—of his people. There is one in particular that may buy us some time."

Lucy smiles and Aslan roars and for the first time since finding out about the Telmarines, she feels that there is hope for her beloved land.

* * *

Edmund is assigned with brokering the terms with Miraz and, while the army is busy, Lucy and Susan will ride out of one of the many tunnels into the woods in search of Aslan.

They are all hoping the duel would last long enough for the sisters to return with the Great Lion and if it does not, that it would be Miraz to fall.

The siblings all change for battle in their sleeping quarters, Lucy helping Susan into her chain mail shirt and leather corset, the plain red dress sitting comfortably underneath. Lucy needs no help with her armour as it is just chain, with a red tunic emblazoned with a golden lion over that and leather and plate keeping everything in place. Edmund's armour matches her and if she had shorter, darker hair, they could be mistaken for each other.

Peter's armour is the most intricate—as he is High King—and he needs both Lucy and Edmund's help in putting it on, though when it is done, Lucy and Susan are both ordered away to the central chamber and told to leave with haste as soon as they are given the signal.

Lucy is preparing to mount the horse Caspian had graciously allowed her and Susan to borrow when she is grabbed around the waist and twisted to face Edmund. She is about to question him when he crushes his lips to hers, one hand staying on her waist, the other knotting in the hair at the base of her skull.

Surprise keeps her still for a beat she unfreezes and tangles her own hands in his thick, jet black hair and, while she can hear the conversation around them stop completely, she cannot find it in herself to care when all she can think of if Edmund and his harsh hand and cold mouth that tastes of apples.

"That better not have been a goodbye, Ed." Lucy says as they break apart, warm and out of breath. Edmund laughs and presses another kiss to her skin.

"Not goodbye, Lucy love." He murmurs softly, not quite quiet enough as Lucy can tell their siblings overheard, "A promise to come back."

"Hopefully I'll be back before the battle starts." She muses, kissing the tip of her twin's nose as he strokes her cheek with his thumb, his hand having moved up from her armoured waist to cradle her face, "We all know you'd be lost without me in a fight."

Her brother laughs and kisses her again before lifting her up and onto the horse.

"Leave in a few minutes. Give them time to see me." He orders and with that, strides out, leaving her staring at the place he'd disappeared.

She'd jolted out of her thoughts by Susan mounting the horse behind her, helped up by Caspian.

"Destier has always served me well." He soothes, because even Lucy, who cannot see Susan's face, knows she is uneasy to ride a horse that cannot talk, "You are in good hands."

"Or hooves." Lucy jokes weakly, though she is paying more attention to her twin, feeling him as he leaves the safety of the How. It goes against everything in her to let him cross the clearing that will soon become a battlefield to go into enemy territory, especially when she is not there with him.

"Good luck." Caspian wishes and Lucy can tell her very much means it, though the statement itself is directed at Susan who smiles and offers thanks.

"Maybe it's time you had this back." The Prince reaches into the bag at his waist and pulls out Susan's horn and Lucy looks back to see her sister smiling.

"Why don't you hold onto it?" Susan suggests, poking Lucy slightly to spur on the horse and Lucy obliges because Edmund is nearly at Miraz's encampment, she can feel it, "You might need to call me again."

Lucy laughs as the horse gallops into the passage leading to the forest.

* * *

As soon as they enter the Shuddering Woods, Lucy is overcome with the power there. She feels dizzy and out of breath as she forces the horse faster, trying to focus on the source of the intense magic in the forest and spurring Destier in that direction, towards the Dark.

She hears the beating of hooves increase and knows they are being followed.

"They've seen us!" She calls to Susan, who shifts uncomfortably behind Lucy. They travel faster through the woods, but it is clear their pursuers cannot be lost. Lucy is about to suggest they turn and face when Susan grabs the reins and pulls the horse to a stop. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Lucy," Susan replies, sliding down from her perch, "but it looks as if you'll be going alone after all."

Lucy yells at her to stop but the horse is already galloping away from Susan, though she manages to get it to stop just before her sister is out of sight. She watches as Susan readies her bow to face the soldiers but she cannot turn back, not when Narnia depends on her finding Aslan, not when Edmund depends on her finding Aslan.

She urges the horse on once more, heading deeper into the woods, towards the Dark, the largest patch of darkness in the forest, though there are others flecked across the land. The Dark is unnatural to Lucy, unnatural and cold as it only grows stronger as faith in Aslan grows weaker and it hurts her to known the Narnians had lost faith so completely as to allow the Dark to grow so much.

The magic is getting stronger as she continues further into the darkness, the darkness that's starting to feel warm and light and she laughs freely as the forest begins to come alive, the Dark receding, letting in golden sunshine.

She stops smiling as she hears the shout of another soldier, but she knows no harm will come to her because she can feel Aslan near, stronger than she's felt him since arriving, stronger even than at the How and she's giddy with magic and joy, forcing her horse even faster so that she may reach her beloved Lion sooner.

The sunshine is blinding to her until she realises that the gold is not the sun, but something massive running parallel to her, something so fast it blurs into what seems like golden light, but the pure energy radiating from it lets Lucy know she has completed her objective.

Aslan turns suddenly, bounding towards her and giving a mighty roar, making her horse rear and knock her to the soft, leafy ground but the Great Lion does not stop, leaping over her and ripping the soldier pursuing her off his horse.

Lucy rises from the wide groove in the forest floor, climbing up the bank to see the soldier running away in terror from the huge Lion.

"Aslan!" She calls, laughing loudly as she runs towards him, tackling him to the ground in a hug. The Lion laughs as well, his paws resting over her as she buries her face into his soft mane, her whole body alight with happiness and light and warmth and it is almost too much for her.

"I knew it was you!" Lucy laughs, pulling away and sitting on the ground opposite Him, "The whole time I knew it! But… the others wouldn't believe me."

She had turned sheepish in the end, knowing that Aslan was displeased with her for not seeking him out sooner.

"And why would that have stopped you from coming to me?" He asks, though His voice is still kind, rather than the angry she had thought it should be. She pauses for a moment, looking down at her hands.

"I'm sorry…" She looks up at Aslan, "I was too scared to come alone."

"Edmund would have followed you, you knew that." Aslan points out and Lucy can see the challenge in His eyes, the smile that's waiting there.

"Yes, but Peter and Susan would not have. I would not defy them so openly." She replies, smiling at the nod the Lion gives, but her expression soon darkens, "Why haven't you shown yourself? Why couldn't you come roaring in to save us like last time?"

Aslan's expression is fond and warm when He replies—confirms, really, confirms that He can get into her dreams and tell her things, show her things—"Things never happen the same way twice, dear one."

A thought occurs to her and she feels sick.

"If I had come earlier…" she pauses and breaths, trying to dispel the images of the Narnians trapped behind the gate, of their screams as the Telmarines slaughter them, "everyone who died… could I have stopped that?"

"We can never know what would have happened, Lucy." The Great Lion responds, though his eyes are sad and she ___knows_, "But what will happen is another matter entirely."

"You'll help?" she grins, remembering why she'd ventured into the forest in the first place.

"Of course, as will you." Her smile falters at His words and she nervously tugs at the hem of her tunic.

"Oh, well I wish I was braver."

"If you were any braver, you would be a lioness." Aslan laughs, before rising, "Now, I think your friends have slept long enough, don't you?"

He gives a roar and everything seems to burst into colours and patterns and Lucy almost faint from the sheer power.

* * *

Caspian stares at Glozelle as the man hesitates with the pike raised but his decision is made for him when a tree root rips through the soil of the undercut and wraps around the Telmarine general, knocking him unconscious.

The prince stares in awe at the trees moving along the battlefield as Peter helps him out of the pit, the trees that are groaning as they move their roots like legs, grabbing only Telmarine soldiers, crushing them easily.

Edmund and Susan walk to them, watching the trees in the same way, though Edmund's face is split into a proud—and relieved—grin.

"Lucy." Peter explains, his mouth also quirking upwards into a wide smile.

The Narnians cheer as the Telmarines are forced back but when a tree is hit by a catapult, Caspian watches in fascination—and slight fear, he will admit—as the tree itself seems to roar in agony and all the other trees begin their assault anew, angry at the catapults.

They crush them as easily as they crushed the soldiers and Caspian wonders how anyone could possibly hold so much power over things, especially a girl as young as Lucy.

* * *

Along their way to the bridge, Lucy and Aslan talk about Narnia, about Trumpkin and Caspian and to an extent, about Susan and Peter.

After a while, they fall onto the subject of the last trip to Narnia, more specifically the leaving it.

"You understand why you had to go, dear one?" He questions and she nods sadly.

"We would not have defeated the Telmarines." She confirms, twisting her hands further into His fur, "And we were needed to defeat them now."

"Yes. I am sorry, Lucy, that your cub never was." He sounds sincere and, though she had already resigned herself to what had to happen, it is nice to hear that He had not meant it to be so. "Now, we must talk about your… abilities."

"Like, how I can tell where Edmund is?"

"Among others." He agrees, still running through the illuminated forest, "You discovered Narnia before your siblings and it gave you more faith than them. You were younger, you were always going to believe in this world more than they could and that faith, the strongest faith Narnia has ever seen, it linked you to this land in a way no one else ever has been, probably ever will be."

"Aslan, does Narnia… run on faith?" Lucy asks, pressing closer to the Lion's back as she leaps over fallen trees. The Lion laughs and answers with, "Yes, dear one. Narnia loves you because you believe so fully in it and its wonders. You power the land in a way so Narnia chose to power you, to give you the ability to use Narnia's magic."

"But why…" She sighs and trails off, unsure how to word all her questions.

"You can feel Edmund because he is the one you are most attuned to. In Narnia, people and places have… flavours, I suppose. Everyone is different and over time, you will become more adept at recognising people through how they feel."

"So, with you, I'll be able to tell because you feel warm and… intricate, like you're radiating pure magic and Narnia." She sums up and she can feel Him nod underneath her hands. "That's… strange. Brilliant, but strange. Can I do anything else?"

"Do you want to be able to do anything else?" Aslan questions kindly as they near the river.

"No… but it would be nice to know, just in case I think something is normal for Narnia and it turns out I'm just abnormal." She thinks of Peter and his admission of not being at all like her, of how alienated she'd felt.

"You are ___special_, Queen Lucy, not abnormal." The Lion chastised, "But yes, there's more. The land will react to you. Grass that is dry and stunted will grow underneath your feet, the wind will sing for you and the trees will incline in your direction. You are Queen on the Glistening Eastern Sea, Lucy, because water is the most powerful thing in the land and you will keep it calm and peaceful."

"That is…" Lucy is lost for words but it matters not as they reach the river, the sounds of an army approaching beginning to filter in through the trees, trees that are dancing in the wind, happy to be alive again. She slips down from Aslan's back when he stops and begins to walk towards the unnatural bridge.

She can feel the water pulsing, angry at the intrusion of the dead wood—___murdered wood_, Lucy thinks angrily—but she steps onto the bridge anyway and waits for the army, Aslan's warm presence at her back.

* * *

As the Narnian army exit through the trees in pursuit of the Telmarines, they stop short to avoid running into the swords of the opposition.

Caspian and the three siblings make their way to the front, watching Sopespian as he sit atop his horse directly in front of the bridge, something unknown stopping him from crossing.

The prince looks harder and soon enough, Queen Lucy comes into sight, standing tall and proud at the other side of the bridge, her armour gleaming in the bright sun, her hair whipping around her face. She looks like a queen in that moment, a warrior queen ready to take on a whole army.

A wide smile spreads across the small Queen's face and she draws her sword, daring the Telmarines to cross and when Caspian looks around, he notices an identical expression lighting up Edmund face, though his grin has more smugness in it.

Something flickering at Lucy's side of the bridge catches Caspian's attention and he gasps, along with all the other Narnians.

A massive golden lion—at least a head or two taller than the youngest queen—comes to rest beside her, sitting and waiting patiently for the Telmarines, it's huge paws just that bit further in front of Lucy, the muscles in its legs tense and ready to spring.

"Aslan." Peter breathes, a grin twisting at his mouth, though his expression falters as Sopespian orders a charge, the cavalry all heading straight for Lucy and the Lion from fairytales.

They are almost half way across the bridge when Aslan roars, the sound echoing across the river and the charge falter slightly.

It comes to a complete stop when the Telmarines notice the rushing wave, the huge body of water that will rip the bridge right up and the soldier begin to try to get back, screaming and yelling in fear.

Caspian watches in awe as, what he assumes is a river god, rises up out of the wave, its hands going under the bridge and ripping it up with only Sopespian left on it. The river opens its mouth wide and seems to swallow the Telmarine before continuing on downstream, melting back into the water.

Telmarine soldiers are pull from the now calm river, their weapons taken from them as the Narnians take charge, crossing the river to capture those soldiers that try to escape. Caspian ignores that, focusing on the mighty Lion and Lucy as they wait patiently for the kings and queen to cross.

Caspian wades through the river along with the queen and kings of old and, when they come to a stop in front of Lucy and Aslan, Caspian is surprised to not that Lucy's eyes seem more gold than brown, more wide and bright than normal. They all pause for a moment before Peter drops to one knee, followed closely by the rest, though Susan kneels completely.

There is a beat before Aslan says anything.

"Rise, kings and queens of Narnia." The Lion's voice is rich and powerful, but Caspian stays kneeling, thinking that He is talking to the kings and queens of Old, but His next words prove differently, "All of you."

"I do not think I am ready." Caspian admits, remembering the anger towards Peter, the need for vengeance, the White Witch… He stays kneeling.

"It's for that very reason I know you are." Aslan is calm and Caspian rises, suddenly feeling lighter than he has since his father died. Susan smiles at him, but the siblings joy of being reunited is stopped before it can be expressed as the mice knights walk up, one of them playing the pipes while they follow two other mice carrying a stretcher with Reepicheep lying unconscious on.

They lie the stretcher down at the feet of the children, Lucy rushing from Aslan's side to kneel down next to them, her cordial already in hand.

She carefully lets one drop fall into the mouse's slightly open mouth and then rises again, waiting for the liquid to take action along with the rest of them.

Reepicheep opens his eyes a few seconds later, breathing heavily but repairing.

"Oh thank you, your majesty." He wheezes out, another mouse coming to help him to his feet. He staggers for a moment before finding his bearings. He begins to say something else but cuts himself off when he notices Aslan.

"Oh! Hail Aslan!" He cries, drawing his sword, "It is a great honour to be—"

The mouse stumbles as he makes to bow and Caspian realises that Reep has no tail, just a small little stump where the appendage should have been.

"I am completely out of countenance!" He laments, trying to regain his balance while also feeling around for a tail no longer there, "I must crave your indulgence for appearing in this unseemly manner. Perhaps a drop more?"

The question is aimed at Lucy as Reep stretches out to look at the glass vial in her hand but her expression is sympathetic.

"I don't think it does that." She admits, looking sadly at her mouse friend and Caspian is struck for the first time by how odd it is that Susan be named Gentle when Lucy has a healing cordial that—if legends got it correct—she was banned from bringing to battle because she would waste it on trying to heal everyone.

He then takes in her grab again and decides Valiant is just as apt a description.

"You can have a go." Reep suggests, only half joking, though he makes Aslan laugh.

"It becomes you well, small one." The Lion chuckles, shaking His mane out, but Reep sadly backs away.

"All the same, great king," the mouse begins, drawing his sword and laying it flat in his hands, offering the blade to Aslan, "I regret that I must withdraw, for a tail is the honour and glory of a mouse."

"Perhaps you think too much of your honour, friend." the true king of Narnia suggests, making Reep quick to explain himself.

"Well, it's not just the honour." He hedges and Caspian starts to smile, along with the rest of the kings and queens, "It's also great for balance… and climbing… and grabbing things."

"May it please you, your high majesty," Preepiceep, second in command, speaks up, drawing his sword and putting it to his own tail, "we will not bear the shame of wearing an honour denied to our chief."

Aslan laughs again as the mice all draw their swords and Caspian notices Lucy's eyes widen before she begins laughing also.

"Not for your honour, but for the love of your people." He says solemnly and Caspian watches in awe as Reep's stub grows back into a long and fleshy tail.

"Oh look!" the mouse knight gasps, grasping his tail and turning around to display it, "thank you, thank you, my liege! I will treasure it always! From this day forward, it will serve as a great reminder of my huge humility."

They all laugh as the mice chatter excitedly and, having their first opportunity to great each other, Lucy throws herself into Edmund's arm, her arms wrapping tightly around his neck.

They let go after a few moments and Caspian swears he could see Edmund smelling his twin's damp hair when he had his face buried in the crook of her neck. Lucy hugs her other siblings then, and he notices she squeezes Susan that bit tighter probably relieved to see her after leaving her in the Shuddering Woods.

Lucy turns to him them, smile bright, and, ignoring his outstretched hand, she hugs him as well. With her lips at his ear, she takes the opportunity to whisper, "You'll be a great king."

Pulling away, she laughs.

"I'm just glad you're all safe."

"So are we." Peter laughs as well, mussing her hair and she smiles even brighter for him before going back over to Edmund and settling into his side.

"Now," Aslan interrupts the reunion to question Lucy, "where is this dear little friend you've told me so much about?"

They all turn to look at Trumpkin, who is by the river taking weapons from soldiers and, probably feeling eyes on him, Trumpkin turns nervously to look at them, his eyes going to Aslan first. He walks forward slightly before dropping to one knee, sinking his sword into the ground.

The Great Lion roars loudly, making the dwarf shudder, but Lucy just laughs freely again.

"Do you see him now?"

* * *

It is a day's march to Miraz's castle, too long for the worn out army, so they camp overnight in a large clearing and in the morning when they are packing up, Peter finds that Edmund and Lucy have disappeared.

It doesn't take long to find them because—although he'd initially been set to rip the forest apart, thinking the worst—he knows Lucy likes to explore when she is new to a place and Trumpkin turns out to be an expert tracker, so they—himself, Susan, Caspian and Trumpkin—simply have to follow the strange markings, made up of darker, healthier grass around the prints that are just the right size to be Lucy's feet.

Peter hears Lucy's laughter before he sees her, though when he does, it leaves him in awe.

She is dressed in a blue dress, the skirts of which seem to be moving like waves as she dances through the trees, laughing as Edmund tries to catch up. Every time he gets close, she twirls out of the way, the trees almost following her movements, and she looks wild as she dances in the woods, twigs and flowers tangled in her light brown hair, feet dirty from the soft, earthy forest floor.

They group watch the couple as they laugh and dance and twirl and when Susan gasps, Peter thinks it must be from how sweet they look, how free and happy, but Trumpkin proves him wrong with a whisper of, "Look at her feet…"

Peter looks and for a moment, all he sees is dirty toes and blurs as his sister continues to spin but then he notices the patterns her feet leave behind, the healthy grass that grows where she steps and when she hides behind a tree and waits for Edmund to find her, breathless and giddy, he realises the grass and wildflowers are beginning to twine around her feet.

She presses her hands against the bark of the tree she is ducked behind and Peter swears the spirit sings for her, humming happily.

"Look what I can do, Edmund!" She calls, and he turns, grinning. Lucy raises her hands and covers her eyes and then, she darts towards him, twirling away from trees and leaping over roots and when the youngest Pevensie brother makes to hide, she follows his every movement, hands still covering her gold eyes.

"How—" Edmund gasps out, out of breath from running and jumping, "How are you doing that?"

"I have faith." She states, giggling at her brother's expression, "Aslan explained it. I have the strongest faith in Narnia and Narnia… runs on faith, I think. Narnia love me, Aslan said, because I'm a bright energy source, the brightest it's ever seen, so the land has bound itself to me, letting me feel the faith, the energy of it."

Her face darkens and she stops dancing through the trees.

"There was so much Dark because people lost their faith in Aslan, and Aslan is made of Narnia—or Narnia's made of him, either one—so Narnia slowly… died, I guess." Her sweet voice is sad and Edmund goes to her and pulls her down to a mossy bank with him.

"And now Narnia is alive again and it belongs to the Narnians." He soothes, pressing a kiss to her temple. Lucy sighs and leans against her brother.

"We are Narnians too." She murmurs, just loud enough for Peter and the others to hear from their hiding place, "When will Narnia belong to us?"

"Narnia will clearly always belong to you, Lucy love. To us. But we will not always belong to Narnia." Edmund tries in vain to explain why they are forced away from their land but it eases his twin little. She sighs again and pushes him back so he is lying down then goes to join him.

"I love you, Ed." She whispers softly, kissing his fingers that she has entwined with her own.

"Love you too, Luce."

They lay like that for a minute or two before Peter decided to make his group's presence known because even if he's accepted their relationship, it doesn't mean he's comfortable watching them snuggle and whisper sweet nothings. He coughs loudly as he slips out from behind the thick tree and though Edmund starts and reaches for his sword, Lucy doesn't even look up.

"You can tell the others to come out too." She calls to him, her mouth twisting upwards, her eyes still shut.

He laughs and doesn't question her because he knows she's special, even before she told him about knowing the White Witch was in the How and now it seems she's even more special than he'd thought.

Caspian, Susan and Trumpkin step into view, all varying shades of sheepish.

"Sorry about uh…" Caspian goes to apologise but he trails of as Edmund sits up, raising an eyebrow at him.

"Eavesdropping?" He offers, grinning as the older boy shifts uncomfortably.

"Edmund." Lucy reprimands softly, though Peter can see the amused grin twisting at her own mouth and he bites back a laugh at the two. Trumpkin is hiding a smile as well.

"C'mon, we should get back to camp." Susan ushers, rolling her eyes as Lucy pouts but eventually the youngest Queen concedes and raises herself off the ground, helped up by Edmund.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" She teases, making her way past the group. Edmund laughs and reaches out to her but she bolts, running through the forest soundlessly.

"Last one there is a rabadash!" She calls in her wake and then they're all running and laughing, though Trumpkin is more reserved, being older than the others.

Peter doesn't care about that because Lucy and Susan are laughing and playing again and he hopes they'll stay like that for as long as possible.

* * *

They ride through the streets of Miraz—Caspian's—castle, and the people wave from windows and throw petals into the air and onto the path, rejoicing at their new king, who rides in front of the kings and queens of old, who are all wear their respective colours—Peter in pale blue for the icy skies of the north, Susan in gold for the bright sun of the south, Edmund in brown and dark green for the deep forests of the west and Lucy in midnight blue and pale green for the fearsome sea of the east.

The Pevensies' wave and smile at the crowds gathered, many of those having never seen a centaur or a faun before, though the creatures now walk in abundance through their streets.

Caspian is pleased to note that no one seems overly scared or horrified and in some faces, he sees genuine happiness and it is enough to make Caspian smile and wave back at his subjects, pleased and relieved to be received in such a way.

They all celebrate that night, letting off fireworks and having a feast, before the floor is cleared and music is started, music provided by the fauns and spirits—the nymphs and dryads that Lucy had kindly invited.

Lucy herself is seen spinning around the floor in a beautifully detailed dress—a simple deep blue forepart, accompanied by a pale green overskirt and a pale green doublet, that, if he wasn't mistaken, was buttoned with seashells and dark blue cord—her brown hair elaborately styled and kept in place with pearly clips, Edmund holding her waist as they dance.

Caspian spots Susan as she walks back over to the high table after finishing her dance with Peter and he thinks she looks gorgeous in her gown of red and gold, the deep crimson making up the main part of the dress, though it has gold embroidered into the hem, and gold lace for the sleeves and décolletage—the lace would almost be a tippet if it weren't for the fact it lay underneath the strapless dress—making up for the fact the neckline is very.

He asks her to dance and they spend the night on the floor with her brothers and sister, laughing and twirling, at ease now the rebellion is over.

However, when Caspian sees Susan the next day, she is pale and uneasy, her eyes red from crying and he knows Aslan has told her and Peter—who is looking oddly solemn compared to the last time Caspian had seen him, which was somewhere in the gardens, drunk and sparring with Reepicheep—something awful.

He calls them to come listen to him address his people with Aslan's terms anyway, ignoring the knot of something in his stomach as she looks back at the Lion, who nods sadly.

* * *

Lucy watches with interest as Caspian addresses his people and she listens to Aslan intently as he tells the Telmarines where they are really from, as she had always wanted to know how humans could be in Narnia and the surrounding lands, without walking through a wardrobe or the deep magic bringing them.

She grins as Aslan opens the door to their world, the magic he's exuding enough to leave her breathless, but she stops herself from sighing in happiness to avoid her siblings' eyes.

She is knocked roughly and harshly from her magic-induced bliss by one of said siblings.

"We'll go." Peter offers, though there is no room for argument in the tone he uses. Lucy stares wide-eyed at him, unable to comprehend what he is doing.

"We will?" Edmund's question is unsure and dazed, as caught off guard as she is.

"Come on." He urges quietly, his smile soft and sad, "Our time's up. After all, we're not really needed here anymore."

He presents his sword to Caspian, who takes it reluctantly.

"I will look after it until your return." The newly-crowned king promises solemnly, but one look at Susan's face and Lucy ___knows_ and she suddenly can't breathe, because ___no_, Narnia is her home and she refuses to give it up.

"I'm afraid that's just it." Susan speaks up, sad but understanding eyes on Caspian, "We're not coming back."

Lucy steps backwards, into Edmund's arms and he grips her tightly, keeping her safe. She can hear his promise from last time echoing in her eyes.

___It'll be alright_.

"We're not?" She whispers, looking at Aslan with hurt scrawled across her face but his eyes—the same colour as hers now, for some reason—are kind and sad, but not sad for her, she realises.

"You two are." Peter smiles at her in reassurance, "At least I think that's what He means."

"But why?" She asks and she struggles to keep the rising anger out of her voice because, while the hysteria at the thought of parting from Narnia forever had passed, she felt righteous on behalf of her older siblings who were being subjected to that fate, "Did they do something wrong?"

"Quite the opposite, dear one." The Lion soothed, "But all things have their time. Your brother and sister have learnt what they can from this world. Now it's time for them to live in their own."

___And when is it my turn to live in 'my' world, Aslan? When am I to be banished?_ She cannot help the acidic thoughts that race through her head and she knows Aslan has heard them when his eyes soften just that bit more, but she looks away, intent on Peter.

"It's alright, Lu." He assures, and she can see he's come to terms with it, though there is a sad edge to his curved up mouth, "It's not how I thought it would be, but it's alright. One day you'll see too. Come on."

Lucy wants to cry for him, to tell him she doesn't want to ___ever_ understand how this is alright, but she forces the brave faces they have on onto her own face and walks to the line of people she will miss the most.

She stops in front of Trumpkin and curtsies as he bows awkwardly, but her resolve crumbles and she hugs her dear little friend hard, letting go eventually, just in time to see Susan pulling away from a kiss with Caspian. The youngest queen looks away, to Aslan who simply nods.

She throws herself into him, ignoring the shocked gasps from the crowd as she does so in favour of hugging the Lion tightly.

"I don't understand this," She murmurs softly to him, "but I know it's for the best, so I will forgive you."

"Goodbye, dear one." Aslan replies, smiling at her and beckoning toward the door in between the entwined trees.

She stands with her siblings in front of the tree and surveys the people gathered, the friends and the strangers and, of course, the true King of Narnia.

She smiles.

The magic in the air twirls and spins around and around the tree, directing them.

___It's time_.

She is the last through the trees, into the London Underground and distantly she hears Aslan's roar.

Edmund grins at her, taking her hand as they walk onto the train.

"It'll be alright, Luce."

This time, she believes him.


End file.
